


The One With The Marauders

by PrefectMoony



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26159062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrefectMoony/pseuds/PrefectMoony
Summary: Everything suddenly feels so  maddeningly golden and lovely and splendid. He’s dancing with his mother in the middle of his wedding, and she’s telling him how much he looks like Lyall during their own. From here he can see Lily and Dorcas laughing with one another near the champaign fountain and Marlene pouring pedals over a grinning  Peter and unimpressed Regulus’s  heads.  But it’s not until Remus finally rests his gaze  on Sirius from across the way, where a watery eyed  Mrs Potter is holding a conversation with him and James, that Remus’s heart seizes. Sirius looks up, smile going ebullient when he spots him and Remus’s never been so sure that everything they’ve been through was worth it if it means they’re here now, that they’re with one another for forever.ORThe one where I write a series of unconnected one shots for the marauders based on Friends storylines.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Mary Macdonald/Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 57
Kudos: 101





	1. The One Where Remus Finds Out

“We just took out a batch of the blueberry muffins from the oven,” Sirius tells them while handing Marlene her typical espresso. “You lot want some?”

“No thank you,” Peter sniffs, pulls out the water from his backpack and pours a packet of protein powder into it before mixing. Lily squints at him while Marlene dissolves into peals of giggles.

Sirius just rolls his eyes heavenwards.

“Oh come off it,” he sighs. “Is this really because I said you’ve gained a few pounds last week?”

“Chunky!” Peter corrects with a yelp. “You called me chunky.”

“It’s cute,” Lily assures him, pinching his cheek dotingly. “It’s like you’re a bear in hibernation.”

That’s when James all but leaps forwards towards her, big eyes glittering. “You wouldn’t prefer a more athletic build?” He asks worriedly.

“That usually leads to people acting like meat heads if I’m being honest,” Lily retorts with a scoff.

“Oy nice try mate,” Sirius tells him consolingly, patting James on the back with a stifled laugh.

“How did this turn to us reassuring James that him being fit isn’t a problem?” Peter asks, dejected as all get out as he takes a sip of his concoction.

“You’d rather us coddle you wormy?” Sirius asks.

“You called me chunky!” He says again with an emphatic waving to his arm.

“Well Petey, if the shoe fits.”

“Or doesn’t fit in this case,” Marlene mutters from her perch on the armchair, casting him a wicked sort of grin and making it so everyone else dissolves into reluctant giggles. Well, everyone save for Peter.

“I hate this,” he says to no one in particular, pissy as all get out.

“Well hey, I’m out of work and need a project! Why don’t I help you out!” Lily crows excitedly.

“Oh you should take it up, Lils over here would make Jane Fonda weep with envy at her dancing prowls,” James boasts, making it so Lily tries to hide her blush and Sirius that much more annoyed at how petty he feels towards love.

“Fine, but if we put on spandex and my boobs are bigger than yours, then it’s off,” Peter grouses.

“What’s off,” Dorcas asks once walking in and sitting besides Peter, tells Sirius to bring her a non fat latte without even looking up, long, dark legs crossed imperiously.

“Yeah, sure I’m just your errand boy.” He snarks.

“You do work here pretty boy,” she leers.

“I’m still a person!” Sirius counters with admittedly more dramatics than needed. “Do I not bleed like you Meadowes.”

“You also spread a rumor that we slept together senior year so that Jessamine Whitmore wouldn’t ask you out to the winter formal, which made my girlfriend think I was cheating on her,” she retorts scathingly, not even flinching. Sirius is properly cowed, even if he thinks it’s ridiculous that she can still hold that over his head after so many years. “Now back to what being off?”

“Oh nothing, Just Peter’s already precarious self esteem,” Lily waves away. “How was your lunch with that cute park ranger?” she asks while Marlene offers Dorcas a bite from her muffin.

“Fun—“ she stilts. “I mean. Yeah… Fun, it was great.”

“He still hasn’t put out has he?” Sirius intones knowingly.

“No, not even close,” Dorcas admits, completely exasperated.

“The man’s a idiot and a coward,” Marlene tells her with such feeling that Sirius is almost afraid she’s about to bust a metaphorical nut just by looking at Dorcas. It’s actually sad how long she can wait around until Dorcas pulls her head out her ass and bothers to give Marlene the time of day as more than just a friend.

Sirius most certainly does not think of brilliant green eyes and crooked smiles and the lovely cadence to Remus’s speech that makes him sound like he’s meant to be in an Emily Bronte novel.

“I mean last time this happened with the ice skater, he came out and told you he was in love with his childhood best friend.” Sirius points out. “Maybe you’re just destined to fuck gay dick,” Okay, maybe that was a bit crass. It’s not her fault that she’s got him thinking of Remus fucking Lupin, and now Sirius is just standing here trying his hardest to runaway from those long ago strangled and put away feelings.

“That’s not a thing!” Dorcas fumes, then suddenly looks completely unsure and borderline terrified. “Wait that’s not a thing right you guys. He’s not gay? Is he?”

The remaining three reply in varying tones of reassurance.

“Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!” James suddenly leaps up, frantic as hell. “Ah um, Sirius! Quick Lily needs to read your aura!”

“My aura?” Sirius asks suspiciously, brows furrowed.

“Ah, erm Yes….” she plays along, as confused looking as Sirius. “It’s ah a new cooking technique I’m trying— You know, every aura has its favorite seasoning.”

“Lils have you gone insane?” Sirius demands, catches on someone calling to get their order filled towards the back. He pivots around only to be face to face to Remus looking like he just might get swallowed up by none other than Douchebag supreme who always ogled his ass in public— AKA his night teacher for graduates school (as if an English degree from Cambridge wasn’t enough.)

“Oh,” Sirius has decided to completely ignore the dude in the back, and opt to be a sadistic fuck staring after the way they’re pawing at each other. “That’s a bit obscene, I hope Remus doesn’t bite his tongue off.”

“My, this…. This is awkward,” Peter wheezes out with a partial laugh, tugging on his collar.

“I’m sorry Pads,” James says, scarily sympathetic.

“Hah, you guys forget it.” Sirius waves them off, turns around from the soft porno outside. “I don’t care, it’s Remus. We’re friends.”

“Friends who fucked,” Dorcas needles pointedly.

“I fuck plenty of friends, Remus’s no different.”

Everyone looks a bit put out at that, but Sirius doesn’t have time to figure out why, is instead too busy trying to school his features into his typical indifference once he hears the doorbells tinkling, queueing Remus and cos entry.

“Hiya you guys,” Remus says in his boisterous timbre before focusing his gaze on Lily, not even glancing at Sirius. But that’s fine, they’re just friends, nothing more. That’s all their history is. Sirius was never Remus’s ex, they were never each other’s anything more than bedfellows… That’s at least what Sirius tells himself so not to be hung up on such stupid, non consequential shit. “Lils do you know if my mum sent over the old dog toys in the mail yet?”

“You can’t even check your own mail Moons, tsk, tsk. Getting lazy mate.” Sirius tries for joking, but suspects it came out a bit forced.

“Oh, hah, no I’ve just been staying at Caradoc’s for the last couple days and haven’t got a chance to check it myself.”

Sirius pretends that his left eye isn’t totally fucking twitching at that. “Oh, how scandalous,” he laughs, sickeningly sweet.

“Always pleasant to speak with you mate,” Douchebag supreme— Caradoc— jibes, disgustingly pleasant.

“Yeah it came earlier love,” Lily tells Remus, probably thinking she’s defusing the tension with her stiff smile and forced giggle. “I’ve just left it in your room.”

“So what do you guys want to do with that?” James asks, stiff lipped and airy, Sirius silently thanks the gods above for such a loyal best friend.

“We’re adopting a puppy,” Caradoc preens, his grossly bright blue eyes glittering with excitement.

“We reckon he’ll live with me one week and him the other,” Remus explains, and to Sirius’s great horror, he sounds excited over the whole ordeal.

“Like divorced parents tossing around a kid?” Sirius asks with a faux congenial smile, forever a bit vindictive, and a lot bitchy, he supposes that comes from his upbringing raised by the greatest bitch in the galaxy.

“Well, if we just moved into the same place,” Caradoc prods, and Remus stiffens.

And oh, a chink in the armor.

“It’ll be fine,” Remus smoothly detaches himself from that conversation, he’s always been so good at that.  
Once upon a time, when they shared the fucked up, heated, heart wrenching love affair, Remus had always sniped at how blithe Sirius was, how noncommittal he was towards every aspect of his life. But that was nothing in comparison to how Remus had this uncanny ability to compartmentalize everyone and everything in his own world. How he put people in exactly the distance he wanted, how he thought he could have it all if only he placed his chess pieces in the exact right stances.

He wonders if either of them knew how true their words stung.

“So, what are you guys up to for tonight?” Remus asks, perched on Dorcas’s armrest and smiling up at Sirius in that heart wrenchingly guileless way that makes him look so devastatingly beautiful, softening his sharp cheekbones and accentuating the golden specs to his eyes.

Sirius thinks that if he let him, Remus Lupin could quite literally wreck him. Hates the idea that he’s still doing it without Sirius’s permission.

“I’ve got a date,” Sirius blurts out before he could think about it, hates it when Remus’s face stays so passive and unaffected. “With a man.”

“You’re wearing a Queen Beyonce clip on your shirt,” Peter snorts. “I don’t think the man bit was necessary to clarify.”

“Shut it wormy,” Sirius hisses darkly, cuffing him on the back of the head for good measure.

“Enjoy yourself then,” fucking Caradoc— I save puppies and walk little old ladies across the street on my down time— Dearborn tells him, one hand clasped on Remus’s shoulder in what must be some sort of esoteric ritual of trying to tell Sirius that he’s taken. As if he isn’t painfully aware of that. “I hear good things about that new revival of Sweeney Todd off West End.”

“Gee thanks,” Sirius says caustically. “But me and my dates usually prefer something more physical than a show and drinks, isn’t that right Remus.”

Sirius may or may not get some sort of sick pleasure at how the other man begins to flush prettily, gaze averted and lips pursed.

“That’s what you tell us Sirius, just don’t wake up poor James when you stumble home drunk.”

Sirius feels the itch to counter, to continue on tossing barbs and insults and inside jokes till he and Remus are writhing on his ratty old couch, stealing moments from their slice of eternity that was never meant to last in the light of day.

But then his eyes catch on how Caradoc’s begun massaging small circles onto Remus’s shoulder and how content Remus looks from it and all the fight leaves him in an instant when he remembers how downright miserable they made each other ninety percent of the time. 

Sirius was too intense, and Remus was always so fucking distant, and neither of them got what they needed.

But God does he love him, wonders if Remus still feels the sa way.

Refusing to get lost in that train of thought, Sirius turns around to ask Lily more about her aura and spices theory, as if it wasn’t just a made up ploy. And he laughs with Marlene about something stupid James had done at the detective agency they both work at. And he goads Peter into eating a freshly baked scone. And it’s all normal again.

Sirius most definitely does not talk to Remus or his live in boyfriend for the rest of the afternoon.

It’s fine.

.-

Sirius’s at his favorite nightclub in town, and he’s chatting up a cute guy with nice arms and a pretty smile— someone he’s sure he’s fucked before— and he’s gulping down his favorite drink hand over fist. It’s should all foreshadow a great night of great sex. But all he’s thinking of is stupid fucking Remus, of how Remus claimed to love Sirius even after all of it, and how Remus was the one to walk away and how Remus’s moved on with some ivy league prick and how it’s just a total shit fest.

He wonders if his cooly detached expression has permanently vanished when the cute guy suddenly squints at him, asking if Sirius is alright.

“How long do dogs live?”

“Excuse me?”

“Dogs, mutts, pugs…. How long do they live, you know if I don’t just thrown one out a window.”

“Mate I think PETA made that illegal.” Cute boy, Derek, says, floundered.

“PETA is a bunch of hypocritical wankers,” Sirius says morosely, taking another swig to his pint.

“Looks like Mr Ken doll has checked out his Malibu paradise,” Derek snorts, puts a hand on Sirius’s thigh suggestively.

“Not in the mood,” he swats his hand aside before stealing the cherry from Derek’s drink, making it so the bloke starts to look actually concerned.

“The Sirius Black I know is always horny.”

“Untrue,” Sirius balks, thinks that he should feel some sort of insult for his chastity or what the fuck ever, is too drunk to manage that so settles on just pinning Derek with his most menacing glare.

It’s not working because all Derek does is laugh gleefully.

“Mate the only time you turned me down was like months ago and that was when you were pounding your cute brunette— Oh, I get it.”

“He’s not my cute brunette anymore,” Sirius thinks it’s important to point that out, even amidst his slurring. “He’s shagging a blonde professor. They’re adopting a dog.”

“The one that you want dead.”

“Or just maimed. I’m not picky.”

Derek laughs at that, Sirius wishes he found it the slightest bit attractive, is left just wishing he had some of the mischievous edge to whenever Remus smiled. Or sounded as musical as Remus’s laugh did whenever he was genuinely happy or when Sirius took him off guard with a particularly snide remark.

“Who’d ever think the great and wild Sirius Black would ever pick one of the lowly peasants to make his prince.”

“Shut up,” Sirius knocks shoulders with Derek, briefly feels buoyant until he remembers the point of their conversation. Then he just orders another on Derek’s tab and drinks away.

“You aught to call him, tell him how you feel.” Derek tells him, a bit more tolerable now that he’s not actively trying to get into Sirius’s trousers.

“I told you, they’re adopting a fucking dog,” Sirius pretends that he’s not pouting.

“Then don’t do it to get’m back, do it for yourself. For closure.”

“Closure?” Sirius repeats the word, a totally foreign concept.

“Considering I doubt you’ve ever bothered with a relationship long enough to need that,” Derek needles, making Sirius stick his tongue out at him like they were school boys again. “But for us normal folk, closure’s how you get over someone you cared about. Like putting a bow on the whole relationship. C’est La vie and all that nonsense.”

“And that works?” Sirius asks with a one eyed squint.

“I mean if that doesn’t there’s always the old mantra of to get over someone you get under someone else, and I’d love to be your lab rat for that experiment,” he winks with a megawatt grin.

“You never let up, do you?”

“Not when it comes to you beautiful,” Derek teases, puts Sirius’s phone in his hand for him, before patting his back like a coach would his least promising student on game night. “You’ve got this.”

Admittedly, Sirius is very very drunk. Drunk enough to get his password wrong enough times that his phone’s been disabled for five minutes before he could finally slide it open. Drunk enough that he’s not even embarrassed that an old hookup is who’s telling him how to move on from the guy who probably could’ve been the love of Sirius’s God forsaken life if they hadn’t screwed it up so royally. Drunk enough to look at the time— half past one in the god damn morning— and still only smile dopey at the picture of a totally cross looking Remus on his screen, and feel nothing but wanting and affection and so much longing. Drunk enough that when his thumb accidentally presses down on his name, and it begins to ring, Sirius doesn’t stop it.

The tones finally stop and its Remus’s achingly familiar voice that’s telling him to leave a message after the beep, and how could Sirius honestly deprive him of anything after all they’ve been through.

“Remus! Moony! Moons! Moonykins! No, no Moonbeam! My Moonbeam,” he says the latter in a much softer, much more fond cadence. “It’s me, Sirius. Sirius Black. Monsieur Padfoot, much obliged.” Queue round of hiccups. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m fine, it’s okay. Really. I’m peachy Remus. I mean I totally screwed up a definite good lay because I was to busy of thinking of you and fucking Douchebag Supreme, but that’s normal right? Truly,” Sirius hiccups, feels the earth tilt off orbit for a moment before gathering his bearings once more. “I just, I wanted to tell you not to worry. I’m over you. I am. I’m completely over you, and I think you should name the mutt after me, for prosperity. Okay that’s all…. I miss you but it’s okay because I’m over you and this is closure, c’est la vie and all that.”

Giddily, Sirius cuts the line, looks up hopefully at Derek who’s only frowning at him in pity.

“This is really humanizing you in my eyes Sirius, you know that?”

Sirius doesn’t quite get what that means at his current state, so he just shrugs before demanding Derek call him a cab.

Jesus Christ this night.

.-

With the sensation of a jackhammer continuously plunging into his temple, and the taste of literal death in his mouth, Sirius wakes up the next morning to Lily yelling at Peter through the phone to get the fuck up for their jog. He first wonders why the holy fuck she’s in his and James apartment— which she’s called a nuclear wasteland on numerous occasions— but then just spares a prayer for Peter’s well being while trudging across the hall to her and Remus’s admittedly much more swanky place. Considering the fact both of them have like fucking sticks up their asses about cleanliness and live in the nicest apartment in the building, Sirius hopes that they have at least some sort of magical potion to suddenly make this headache disappear.

What Sirius doesn’t expect to find is fucking Remus sitting there in front of his kitchen table doing the crossword like the fucking nerd he is and looking so warm and inviting in that oversized jumper that always makes his eyes gleam so brightly.

Fucking hell, can he ever just catch a break.

Sirius must’ve said that last part out loud because suddenly Remus looks up, tawny hair sleep mussed and oh so inviting lips pinched in confusion. 

“Sirius, morning.” he greets, tepid smile on his face. “You look like hell old man.”

“I’m like four months older you arse,” he sours, making Remus laugh in the way fucking stupid Caradoc only wishes he could do.

“So your date last night, went well I suppose?”

Sirius doesn’t answer, only excepts the Advil and cup of tea Remus offers him with gracious hands.

“Where’s the professor? Thought dog official at least meant you guys could share a bed.”

Remus studiously as ever dodges the remark, “He’s downstairs getting us a cab, I just needed to pack a few things since I’ll be spending the weekend at his,” Remus explains, absolutely no artifice to his words.  
God Sirius just kinda wishes he would be snide about this, about finally having what he wanted. Sirius thinks that Remus being cruel is better than Remus being indifferent.

“What’s up Sirius,” Remus asks him after what feels like an eon of silence. “You’re staring at me like you can’t quite place something.”

“It’s nothing, just missed your face gorgeous,” he says smugly, making Remus roll his eyes. He’s right though, Sirius can’t quite figure it out but it somehow feels like there’s something very important he wanted to tell Remus. Or maybe has already told him.

“Well you’re free to stay here till Lils comes home,” Remus tells him while shouldering his duffle and flipping through his phone— probably reading some article from the New Yorker or Atlantic or what the fuck ever high brow shit he and his new boyfriend get their rocks off on dissecting.

“Thanks mate,” Sirius deposits into their much nicer, much more comfortable sofa, flipping on an episode of Gilmore Girls.

“Just don’t eat us spare again, yeah?” Remus teases fondly.

Sirius casts him a half hearted V from over his shoulder. “You’re just afraid I’ll come after the chocolates you keep under your bed with your girlie face masks Lupin,” Sirius scoffs.

“Now that you know, I’ll have to kill you.” Jesus Sirius must really be gone on him if even that pitiful excuse of a joke is making him throw back his head in laughter.

“Dork.”

“Plonker.”

“’S not good form to be insulting your guests Moony, c’mon man. Where has your flat etiquette gone?”

“Tossed in the trash along with your flee cream perhaps?” Remus answers owlishly.

“Rude and unwarranted slander Moony.”

Remus ignores him, a small dent appearing between his brows as he looks closer to his screen. “Oh hey Sirius I got a message from you last night? Should I be afraid this’s a booty call while you guys are utterly shagging in the bathroom?”

Sirius is painfully confused until he suddenly— horrifyingly— is not.

“Remus! Don’t listen to that!”

Remus’s eyeing him like he’s grown a second head, and Sirius feels so off balance that he might collapse with pure fright.

“Stop being ridiculous— And why did you clarify which Sirius you are, as if anyone has ever been named that in the history of ever besides you.”

“Oh my god Moony give me the fucking phone!” Sirius shouts, leaping towards him, Remus just barely dodging. “Remus now!” He commands, finally plucking the cell out of the smaller man’s hand, but it’s too late. The damage’s been done.

“You’re over me?”

Sirius’s chest seizes up and everything feels like it’s floating on a cloud. He never wanted this to get out but now that it has he wants to deny deny deny! Deny like he always has when it came to Remus and the way Remus makes him feel. But then he thinks of what Remus has with Douchebag Supreme and how maybe he can salvage that for them.

He doesn’t deny, but he doesn’t speak either.

“Sirius you said You’re over me!” Remus repeats, flabbergasted as he looks up at him— a slight tremor to his words. Sirius still doesn’t reply. “When— When were you under me? You said you didn’t want me, want us…. You said it Sirius!”

“No Moons, I never said that! Of course I want you!”

“You said we weren’t built for commitment. That we’re both just to fucked up for that.” Remus is shouting now, but it only makes Sirius dig his heels into the ground that much more forcefully.

“Yeah, because you refused to talk to me about anything! I thought that’s what you wanted! something casual.”

“You— You’re a fucking prick.”

“I know,” Sirius feels like his insides are melting.

“You know what?” Remus sounds desperate now, voice caught between a shout and a plea. “Know that you are one or know that you weren’t over me till now or know that you were under me and I didn’t even know it!”

“I don’t know! Okay! All of it, okay Remus! All of it!” Sirius actually does shout, standing in front of Remus as if they’ve been thrust a year into the past and all the emotions that threaten to swallow Sirius whole can just disappear for a moment if he gets on his knees and takes Remus down his throat, making everything go quiet just for that snatch of eternity.

“Sirius! What does that mean!” Remus steps back, as if he’s afraid of Sirius somehow. And yes, he remembers that it’s not a year ago. They’re older now, and they’ve grown and they’re good friends.  
Remus has got a boyfriend and Sirius’s trying to strike out on his own in the industry. They’re not the same foolish boys, swapping illicit kisses and knocking knees and dancing in the dim refrigerator light in the middle of the night.

“I don’t know….” Sirius admits, totally defeated sounding.

“Do you want a relationship with me?” Remus continues to interrogate, hands still shaking, but gaze never leaving Sirius’s.

“I don’t know!” He repeats as if they’re the only words his lips can create. He really just wants to yell at him, shake him till he understands. Will you let me be in a relationship with you? Would you actually give me a chance?

“Do you know how long it took me to get over you, over all of it! To move on and be happy?” Remus says in a terrifyingly low voice, the tone he gets when he’s good and properly angry. A tone that always frightened Sirius— so far away from how the screams and shouts were only meant to prod until their little game was over. Him talking like this now, it feels like an ending. “When did you even realize that you had feelings for me!”

Sirius casts his eyes on a point over Remus’s shoulder, willing himself too stand tall.

“I never didn’t have feelings for you Moons.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Remus reddens.

“I know. I’m ridiculous and brash and a right arse most days. But those traits aren’t mutually exclusive from the fact that I think I’ve been in love with you since I met you Remus— And I know, I fucking know you feel something for me.” He swallows down the hurt, hates how open and vulnerable he’s made himself on this battleground.

“I’m with someone else.” Remus says, his words laced with ice and silver.

Sirius shutters back, feeling like Remus has just kicked him in the gut. “I know.”

“God Caradoc!” Remus runs a hand through his pale hair, collecting himself with such perfection that it looks like he had when Sirius first stepped in. “He’s downstairs. He’s waiting for me. I need to go to him.”

“Remus,” Sirius circles his wrist with his hand, pleading. “Jus stay.”

“I can’t stay Sirius! I can’t follow my life according to your schedule! To when you’ll spare the time for me between all your other flings! To when you decide to finally start growing the fuck up and realizing that the world doesn’t spin around your orbit.” Sirius flinches back at that, hates how Remus always knew where to poke at to leave him defenseless. Sirius feels Remus’s gaze go soft. “Is it true then?”

“Pardon?”

“What you said on the message,” he shakes his phone for emphasis. “Are you over me?”

“I dunno,” Sirius hates feeling like he’s been pinned in a corner. “Are you over me?”

Another silence collapses over them, taught and thick with a static Sirius’s only ever felt around Remus.

“Caradoc’s my boyfriend, and he’s waiting for me." Remus says, sounding like he’s more reminding himself than Sirius. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Remus,” Sirius very nearly pleads.

“I’ve got to get a dog. I’ve got to go with my Caradoc. I’ve got to go.”

“You could stay.” Sirius argues.

Remus doesn’t.

.-

“That was the third order you screwed up in the last hour,” Marlene tells him later that afternoon during Sirius’s shift at the cafe, lips turned down concernedly. “You didn’t even flirt your way out of it.”

“Oh, haven’t noticed,” Sirius mumbles moodily, stays behind the cash register so not to be forced in answering anymore questions, but probably should’ve expected that she would just follow him.  
Marlene’s determined as fuck when it comes to her friends.

“What’s up with you S,” she presses.

“Nothing, just a slow day,” Sirius lies, wonders how blatantly obvious it comes across, is endlessly thankful when Peter and Dorcas walk through the threshold and he has an excuse to dart away from Marlene’s all too contemplative stare.

“All right you guys,” Sirius practically crows.

Peter gives him a distressed look. “Since when are you so chipper.”

“Jesus fucking Christ wormy, can’t I just be excited to see some old friends.”

Peter’s puzzled expression doesn’t budge, but thankfully Dorcas still doesn’t care enough about Sirius to parse out his particular moods, only falls back in exasperation.

“Well I’ve figured out why the park ranger doesn’t want to screw me.” She tells them.

“He’d much rather screw a lithe, pretty boy like mua,” Sirius leers, and Marlene cuffs him on the back of the head, hard.

“No! He isn’t gay Sirius!” Dorcas says waspishly, looking all dejected again in just a moment. “It’s because I’m not sexy enough.”

“That’s not true,” Marlene clucks her tongue— practically fuming with rage— while Sirius just shakes his head at her lack of self esteem. Dorcas is a fucking twelve out of ten, how wouldn’t she know that? God she can be so much like he who shall not be named sometimes. Back when they first started dating, Remus use to act all diffident, as if he wasn’t the most jaw droppingly gorgeous creature to ever cross Sirius’s line of sight.

Oh shit, he just named him.

“Dorcas you’re the most beautiful, compassionate, strong willed woman I know,” Marlene says with heated words, grasping for her hands with a tight squeeze. “Any person would be blessed by the heavens if you even smiled their way.”

Dorcas looks touched, kissing Marlene’s cheek fondly.

“Seriously he’s just probably gay, you don’t have the best track record after all Dorcas.”

She turns to glare at Sirius now, lips twisted in borderline disgust.

“Sometimes I wish you’d drop dead.”

“Carrot cake on the house?”

“Good,” she says airily before turning back to Marlene who’s just staring at her with total hearts in her eyes.

Things almost feel back to normal, but then Lily barges in yelling for Peter and Sirius’s accosted by the blonde when he stumbles into the back and makes his escape.

Okay, so almost back to normal.

.-

Sirius’s closing up shop when the whole world freezes over.

He walks out to the front with a broom in his hands only to find Remus— His Remus— storming through the doors, jaw set and the dim lights tracing his jutting cheekbones so damn romantically.

“Hey.”

“I didn’t get a dog,” Remus tells him, almost accusatory.

“I’m sorry?”

“No you’re not!” Remus is quick to retort. “And you know what you had no right telling me what you felt for me! You had no right! None!”

“Excuse me?” Sirius balks, watches as Remus treads around in circles, trying to collect his wits in an achingly familiar practice.

“I was doing great with Caradoc! He was fun and smart and sexy and he only wanted to sleep with me and he really cares about me.”

“What a peach,” Sirius wrinkles his nose, unimpressed.

“Don’t sound like that, like he isn’t a great guy. Someone I’m lucky to be with!”

“He sounds pretty boring if i’m being honest Moons,” Sirius needles just because he can be cruel when he’s being hurt. Fuck, how dare Remus be able to hurt him like this, without even knowing it.

“Is this just some sorta competition for you! Or do you even want to be with me, in any real capacity,” Remus asks him, totally fuming. Sirius’s non answer must be enough because Remus just straightens, nods to himself before swiveling around to the exit.

“Do you think it’s easy for me to see you with that prick Remus! Get to see you out and proud and happy, like how I wish we could’ve been instead of me being a side piece to you and your twisted complex with yourself and trying to be a thousand things, as if you’re never good enough.

“You never wanted monogamy,” Remus counters.

“I never thought you’d ever come out that closet, you were so scared about not fulfilling your parents’ expectations.”

“So what,” the tension threaded into Remus’s shoulders dissipates, leaving him looking so young and confused and sad. Sirius wonders if they’ll always end up hurting one another like this so they’re back to being shells of those two misguided boys drunk and kissing in that back ally. “You only slept with me the first time because you felt bad for me.”

“Of course not,” Sirius snarls, completely exasperated. “I slept with you for purely selfish reasons Remus. Mainly to do with how fucking gorgeous you are, and how I wanted to hear your voice screaming my name when I fucked you right through the mattress.”

Remus flushes, darts his gaze away from him. “I was doing great before I found out about you feeling anything real for me,” Remus admits, not mean, but hurtful all the same.

“Yeah well I was doing perfectly fine before you ever came into my life!! Invading my friend group. And ruining everything!”

“You see, tHis! This Sirius! This has got to come to an end! I’m happy with Caradoc and you know what I’m over you.”

“Is that right,” Sirius glares, snide as all get out when he thumbs the juncture of Remus’s neck and shoulder— right where he use to nibble on when Remus was beneath him— relishes how he turns a fetching pink and gulps down a thickness in his throat.

“Yes,” he hisses, swatting Sirius’s hand away, borderline furious. “I’m happy, he’s normal. This! Us! We aren’t normal Sirius.”

“So what? You just gonna compartmentalize me like you do with everyone in your life. Tuck away your feelings like they don’t matter, like Caradoc isn’t just some boring bloke.”

“Fuck off Sirius,” Remus seethes, beginning to storm out the cafe.

“Happily!” Sirius yells out after him. “And you know what! Thanks for the closure you ass!”

He smacks shut the door before running back inside, body quivering and willing himself not to fucking cry like he was a fucking girl’s blouse and this is some sort of Nicolas Sparks novel.

He is not a bird and Remus’s a prick and none of this matters.

But then in a series of mere seconds, the cafe’s door swings back open, Sirius feels a tugging on his wrist and suddenly there’s a pair of impossibly soft, impossibly pillowy, impossibly familiar lips on his own. It tastes like coming home and soaring in the skies and the spicy, Indian candies Mrs Potter use to feed him dotingly. It feels like everything and everything and all the things.

There’s a fire still licking up his insides when they part and his eyes are boring into Remus’s gaze.

“You’re back.”

“All I’ve ever wanted is you.”

Sirius is all light, light, light.

“Yeah, me too,” he finally admits before giddily dipping down for another kiss, thinks he’ll never not be hungry for the sensation of it.


	2. The One Where Everyone Finds Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much spellingmynamewrong for the episode suggestion <3

Peter knows who he is, what he has to offer— especially in comparison to his best friends.

Peter knows he’s not as aggressively charming as James or Dorcas. He knows he’s not as effortlessly cool as Sirius or Marlene. And he’s sure as hell not as quick witted as Lily or Remus. There’s also the fact that the lot of them are quite frankly a disgusting level of attractive, and that’s fine. Peter doesn’t mind that he’s not necessarily playing the same league as them, and he’s not bothered by it.

Like he said, Peter knows who he is. He knows that he’s a dependable kind of guy, someone that any of them can come to for a good venting session, and the guy who can make them all laugh with a dumb joke, and the guy who can keep a secret. IE the one he’s been holding hush, hush for the last three fucking months. A secret that has the possibility to shift the entire group’s dynamics once it inevitably comes out. A fucking bat shit insane secret, but one that isn’t exactly surprising.

Sirius’s been smitten with Remus ever since they met half a decade ago when Remus became Lily’s new roommate across the hall, and it’s always been a point of teasing that Remus let’s Sirius lounge all over him when they’re all chilling at the cafe or watching a movie or just sitting around. And even while one of them were seeing someone else, the rest of the group would fondly refer to them as boyfriends, and it was such common place that the one time one of Sirius’s flings— a pretty blonde named Emmeline— had noted that it was weird, everyone else just looked at her as if she grew a second head.

So yeah, honestly Peter’s pretty sure that they’ve all been waiting with bated breaths until those two got their heads out their respective asses and actually stopped dancing around their feelings and just began to date already. Peter however did not expect to be the first one to find out— after walking in on a not so PG moment in the middle of his, Sirius’s and James’s apartment a couple months back. (A moment that included bare asses and Remus on his knees and sounds pouring out Sirius’s mouth that Peter now hears in his nightmares.)What Peter definitely didn’t expect to happen is how they had sworn him to secrecy afterwards. (“Just till we get our bearings with the relationship.” “You screw this up for me Wormy and I swear I’ll toss out all your comic-books and rub itching powder in your pants.”)

He knows for a fact that Sirius’s threat wasn’t idl and he owes Remus like a thousand things, so Peters’ been quiet about it— Even to James, who is impossibly dense when it comes to these kind of things. And it’s been hard, but he reckons he’s been doing a fine job of it… Well that is until Marlene and Lily figure it out and make it all even more complicated.

Jesus help him.

.-

“I don’t understand why the lot of you had to come along,” Lily sighs as she walks into the empty apartment of their old schoolmate and Lily’s tentative friend, quickly followed by an excited James and Marlene. 

Peter rolls his eyes at them as he shuts the door, glancing around the meaty and borderline utilitarian flat.

“And miss out on looking at Snivellus’s creepy den,” James snorts, picking up a snake statue that Snape keeps on his mantel, and cackling. “Come off it Evans.”

“Ooo look! He’s got the whole Battlestar Galactica DVD set!”Marlene crows, and Peter just sits down on Snape’s stiff sofa, exhausted from work.

Lily scoffs at them, moving to water Snape’s plants as asked. “You guys are such thick children sometimes.”

“I wanna see how gross his bedroom is!” James announces, dashing down the hall before anyone can tell him to stop.

“Take pictures!” Marlene yells loud enough in his wake that the upstairs neighbors could probably hear her.

“Children!” Lily repeats, completely caustic, her long, red hair lashing like a whip as she goes to put Snape’s mail on the kitchen counter.

“C’mon Lils, the dude is a little incel, he deserves what he has coming.”

“Don’t be mean Marlene, he was a good friend when I was being brought up.”

“’S that why he got an apartment directly across from yours,” Peter needles. “Just so he can glance over at you whenever he wants.”

Lily glares at him, hands on her hips and lips pinched. “That’s not why he got this place Peter.”

“Sure it is,” Marlene argues. “Look, we can see exactly through the window, and I’ll tell you exactly what book Remus has got his cute little button nose in right this very moment.” She turns around and walks closer to the partition, probably about to describe exactly what she said she would, but Peter doesn’t expect it when a bloodcurdling scream escapes her lips.

Hurriedly, Lily follows suit, screaming the exact same way before they both start hopping up and down like the floor was literal lava.

“What the holy fuck is wrong with the pair of you,” Peter squawks, but then he’s close enough to see it. Namely, he can now see how Sirius has pressed Remus against the window of his and Lily’s apartment, and how Remus has got his legs wrapped around Sirius’s torso, and his hands are knotted in Sirius’s hair, while Sirius’s in turn are kneading into the flesh of Remus’s arse beneath his boxers. 

“Oh fuck.” Peter says lowly amidst the girl’s crowing about it in disbelief.

“Why aren’t you freaking the fuck out Peter!” Marlene demands, glaring at him now, and Peter can’t meet her gaze.

“Oh my God! You knew!” Lily accuses, breathless.

“No! No I didn’t!”

“You’re munching on your thumb nail Peter Pettigrew!”

“Oh my fuck you did know!”

“How did you know before me!” Lily shouts sulkily. “Remus and I share everything!”

“Hey it’s not like I wanted to know! I walked in on them and then they swore me to secrecy and I’ve had to keep quiet about this for so fucking long! And I’m so tired of helping them sneak around!”

“I can not believe this,” Marlene says, still balking, but then they hear footsteps and Peter signals for them to zip their lips.

“James still doesn’t know and Sirius must have a good reason for not telling his own brother of all people.”

The girls nod in unison, and James is immediately accosted by Lily once he comes back brandishing his phone pridefully.

“What’s the rush?”

“I need your help on tasting this new dessert I’m practicing for the restaurant,” Lily answers in a rush.

Marlene quickly grabs James’s other arm, tugging him out Snape’s apartment. “And you’ve gotta show me the good dirt you’ve got on that freak!”

“Oh, erm, yeah. Sure.” Thankfully James never questions too much when Lily’s giving him attention, and Peter only prays that all of this craziness will come to an end sooner rather than later.

.-

“So Petey,” Lily starts, batting her long lashes, and tugging him in-between her and Marlene on the couch in the cafe later that afternoon. “Spill it.”

“But I just bought this coffee,” Peter says wryly.

“No time for jokes Peter,” Marlene reproves with a cluck to her tongue. “Tell us everything about those two sneaks.”

Peter frowns now, shrugging at them diffidently. “I don’t know much.”

Lily glares, taking away his chocolate croissant for good measure, and waggling it at him reproachfully. “How long has this been going on.”

“I’ve only known a couple months, but it’s apparently been half a year. Ever since Dorcas called off her wedding to that girl from the states.”

“Six. Months.” Marlene repeats with wide eyes. 

“But how! How didn’t we figure it out!”

“Dunno,” Peter admits, as lost as the pair of them for how no one’s found out before or after him. “’S not like they’re subtle.”

“Yeah, but they’ve always been that way!” Marlene counters in a huff.

“I just can’t believe they didn’t trust us,” Lily pouts, thumbing at the small tattoo on her wrist that he knows Remus has a matching image to. “We would’ve been excited. We are excited! Those two were bound to get together sooner or later.”

“I don’t think it was a matter of trust,” Peter says consolingly. “Just them wanting to figure things out before publicizing it all.”

“Well we know now,” Marlene says, wicked gleam in her eyes. “And I think we get to have us some fun.”

Lily hikes up her brows, and Peter feels his heart turn to led.

“What do you mean have some fun?”

“Oh you’ll see Petey.”

.-

It’s a normal Saturday morning at their flat. Peter’s reading out loud the clues for the Times’s crossword as Sirius is trying to balance a stack of books on his head, while eating spoons full of peanut butter right from the tube.

So yeah, it’s a normal morning.

But then Remus’s head is popping through the door, and his wide hazel eyes are scanning the expanse of the apartment shiftily.

“Coast is clear Moony,” Peter tells him, making it so Sirius perks up and he gleefully pivots around with a wide grin— aforementioned books tumbling down in a chorus of thuds. “James had to go to the precinct to look at some new evidence for his latest case.”

“Oh,” Remus grins, relaxed and reticent as he comes in, dragging a load of what looks suspiciously like Lily’s laundry behind him. So the girls weren’t joking, this’s a thing that they’re doing.

Oh joy.

“I’ve missed you,” Sirius croons in that soft way of his that he only ever gets like when in reference to Remus, collecting the shorter man in his arms and kissing him slow and thorough.

Peter would really not want to have another show after yesterday’s matinee, so he coughs rather roughly so to remind them that he’s actually not a piece of furniture and is still here for God’s sake.

Sirius glances over to him, a menacing glare set in his handsome face, and one arm still slung around Remus protectively.

“Oy, wormy, piss off won’t you. I mean I don’t mind if you watch, but Re over here doesn’t like to share, you understand.”

Peter scoffs, incredulous. “Is that why you got all moody last week when he was being chatted up by that professor from his university?”

Remus frowns now, pinning Sirius with a one eyed squint. “You were jealous of Kingsley?”

“He was flirting with you!” Sirius defends.

“He’s married with a kid.”

“And, so?”

Remus shakes his head at his boyfriend in that world weary way of his that convinces Peter there was no way he would become anything but a professor. “Doesn’t matter anyhow, I just popped in to say hello. I’ve got papers to grade and Lily’s laundry to do.”

Dejected looking, Sirius nuzzles his nose into Remus’s neck. “You can’t even stay for a bit Moons? I’ve missed you in my bed.”

Alright, so there must be some sorta angel looking out for Peter up there, because he’s spared from reminding them, yet again, that they’re not alone by the ringing of Sirius’s mobile.

“’S Marls,” he says while pulling it out.

Remus is quick when he grabs for Sirius’s wrist, eyes panicked. “Don’t tell her I’m here, she and Lily are watching a film and she thinks I’m busy with the laundry.”

“Right,” Sirius nods before sliding open the call and putting it on speaker.

“Hullo.”

“Hey you,” Marlene purrs through the line in her most sultry inflection, and holy Christ. Peter can’t believe he’s stuck in the middle of this.

Confused looking, Sirius cuts his glance to Remus, who’s already begun gnawing on his bottom lip. “Hey Marls, what’s up.”

“Oh nothing,” she chirps, and Peter can perfectly see the way she tilts her head invitingly, and Lily trying her damndest not to giggle out loud. “Just thinking bout you S.”

“Is that right?”

Remus has moved on to fiddling with the cuff of his sweater and looking at anywhere but Sirius, this obviously sounding like a private conversation if it were at all real. Peter would like the record to show that he wants to be anywhere but here.

“Do you remember us at prom senior year?” Marlene asks the non sequitur with a chortle.

“Erm yeah— Would’ve been a shoe in for royalty I reckon if the whole school weren’t rooting for Prongs and Evans.”

“Oh definitely,” she snickers, and Peter knows for a fact that she’s breaking character but wonders if it’s as obvious to the other two. “And do you remember how long you lasted for me that night in the hotel room.”

Sirius’s face reddens, and in contrary, Remus goes a sickly, pale color.

“Hah, yeah. We were something weren’t we.” Sirius says, flinching back silently when Remus avoids the hand he’s trying to lace into Remus’s own. “Any reason for the sudden trip through memory lane?”

“Oh nothing— “s just, well ever since Dorcas and I broke up last year, I’ve been craving a good lay. And well, besides her you’re the only other person who I’ve dated who was just as pretty and always up for a fun time.”

“Is that right—“ Sirius asks slowly, completely floundered looking.

“And I was wondering if we could have a repeat session of that.” She explains, voice gone husky. “Just for old time’s sake.”

“Ooo, I’m getting another call Marls. Imma have to ring you back.” Sirius nearly drops his phone as he hurriedly hangs up the line, desperately grabbing for Remus as if the world depended on it. Peter sorta feels bad, until he reminds himself of how Sirius had spread a rumor around school Junior year that they called him Wormtail because of his scarily skinny dick. And yeah, this might be fun after all.

“Moony, I swear. I have no idea where that came from! Marls and I have been over since before we even met you!”

Remus just gives him a timid, one armed shrug. “Suppose she still has got some residual feelings for you, I don’t blame her. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to let you go.”

Sirius’s expression goes soft as he thumbs at the apple of Remus’s cheek. “No Moony you don’t get it! We never really felt that way towards each other! We just dated because we were both kids of arses and were hot and bored and wore leather.”

Remus smiles unconvincingly at his boyfriend, but even Peter can see from his viewpoint that it doesn’t touch his eyes.

“She’s awfully pretty— You know Pads, I wouldn’t blame you if you ever wanted—“

“Don’t even fucking finish that sentence Remus,” Sirius all but growls out, his teeth clenched and fists knotted tight. “You’re surely not so daft that you can’t see how fucking gorgeous you are and how much I positively don’t want anyone else.”

“Oh,” Remus flushes, looking towards Peter instead. “Well okay. But I don’t see how you can turn her down, not unless we’re forced to tell everyone about this…”

And It’s like a switch flipping on when Sirius hikes up his brows, slowly and deliberately turning around to Peter with a suspicious expression painted all over his face.

“Peter, you wouldn’t know anything about this, would you?”

Peter swallows hard, feeling his back break out in a sweat.

“Know about you and Marlene? Hah, course I do Padfoot. You two were caught in every room in some state of undress back in high school.” Peter heavily suspects that his smile comes out as more of a grimace than anything else.

“No Peter,” Sirius snaps waspishly. “Does she know?”

Remus’s face breaks out in understanding, and is now looking at Peter with the very same intensity carved into Sirius’s features.

“Ah— Erm. Well, I don’t know what they may or may not—“

“They?” Remus repeats with a yelp.

“No! I mean she! Marlene. I meant I don’t know what Marlene may or may not—“

“Peter don’t you dare try to lie to me or I swear to God I’ll show Marry your Wonder Woman costume from the eighth grade!”

“You said you deleted all the copies!” Peter shouts, affronted.

“Tell us!”

“Okay fine! She and Lily know and they’re trying to mess with you guys till you tell them.” Peter admits, beyond exasperated. “They caught you guys pawing at each other yesterday when Lily had to water Snivellus’s plants.”

“Oh,” Remus breathes out, so painfully relieved that it’s like Peter can feel the tension seeping out the room and through the window.

“Those berks!” Sirius crows. “I can’t believe them!”

“You guys aren’t very sneaky,” Peter tells him in a deadpan, still smarting over the Wonder Woman photos.

“Well,” Remus starts, small smirk playing on the ends of his mouth as he runs a hand through his mussed curls. “This could be interesting.”

“Oh Moons, I love it when you get all mischievous on me,” Sirius grins in an overtly lecherous way. “What do you have cooking in that beautiful mind of yours.”

Remus smiles fully now as he hands Sirius his phone, and Peter feels a suffocating sense of foreboding. “I reckon you should ring Marls back, if they want a game, we shan’t deprive them.”

Sirius is downright glowing as he gazes over at Remus, obviously not wanting anything more than to kiss him stupid. 

“No!” Peter moans, knocking his head against the countertop. “No more games! Why can’t we just tell them that you know that they know, and rinse our hands from all of this!”

“Wormtail they started this, we’re only doing the gentlemanly thing and ending it,” Remus toots, tawny head tipped imperiously. “And we’re going to win, because my side always wins.”

“Peter I’m giving you five seconds to vacate the flat before I ravage my boyfriend good and proper,” Sirius warns lowly, never tearing his lewd gaze away from Remus’s prideful expression. And Peter doesn’t need telling twice.

.-

Today really did start off so normally, Peter had plans damn it. He was going to Finnish an excel spreadsheet for work, and then call his mum to check on how she’s doing with her newly adopted kitty. And he had a dinner date with his girlfriend for fuck’s sake! A dinner date that he’s had to postpone because of this nonsense. The only silver lining being that Marry laughed for five minutes straight once he explained the whole situation. 

Sometimes he wonders how different his life would be if he had befriended normal folks way back in primary school, instead of being swept up by the whirlwind that is the Sirius Black and James Potter duo. Maybe he’d be living in a small town with a wife and kid on the way? But no, instead Peter’s lodged against the doorway of his own flat, pressed close to the prefect of their year as they spy in on a pair of their friends pretending to seduce the other until one of them breaks.

“Fuck me,” Peter blanches, wincing when Lily answers with an elbow to his gut and shushing him with a scowl.

“I can’t believe Sirius would do this to Remus!” She hisses, one eye trained on how Sirius and Marlene have moved to standing only inches apart.

“Ah yeah— Crazy.”

“I swear I’m going to cut his dick off when he’s asleep, the slag.” Lily tells him, watching Peter shrewdly.

“Erm, yeah Lily. He deserves nothing less—“

“Oh cut it out Pettigrew, we know that they know that we know.”

“Pardon?”

“Why you boys try to out smart us is a mystery to me when you’re all such blunders.”

“But how—“

She shushes him again, and Peter glances over to see how Sirius’s clamped an awkward hand on Marlene’s shoulder, and the blonde’s smirking at him like the cat that’s caught the canary.

“You’ve been working out,” she sneers, but the moment her hand touches Sirius’s arse, the door to Sirius’s bedroom bursts open and Remus is scrambling towards them— frantic as all get out.

“All right McKinnon,” he swats her hand away, and slips in underneath Sirius’s arm in such a show of territorialism that it’s skimming on being hilarious.

“Oh Remus darling, what are you doing here?” She clamps a hand against her chest and blinks at him, faux owlish. 

“You can’t touch him because I love him, okay.” Remus says in a voice full of conviction and so obviously over the bull shit.

“Oh my God!” Lily shrieks, jumping up so quickly that she brings Peter down with her when she tumbles through the doorway. 

“Peeping Toms,” Sirius rebukes, looking the happiest Peter has ever seen him.

“You love him!” Lily scrambles up, and jumps towards Remus, hugging him close.

“And I love him too— Love him with all I have,” Sirius says glowingly, tactfully detangling the best friends before pouncing on Remus himself and kissing him senseless.

“You total arse!” Marlene punches him playfully, blouse thankfully buttoned back up and smiling like its Christmas morning. “You should’ve just told us!”

The pair of them only shrug, before Remus bashfully explains that they just wanted it to themselves for a little bit. 

“You’ve got to admit that our friends are an incestuous bunch, we just wanted something kept just between us.”

Sirius readily agrees before kissing Remus’s knuckles through his blinding smile.

“Alright, that might be romantic, but never again!” Lily admonishes through her own grin. “Poor Peter was about to suffer a stroke from all the secret keeping.”

“Yes, well at least that’s over with,” Peter breathes out gratefully. “Everyone knows now.”

“Well— Almost everyone,” Marlene notes coyly, and everyone turns the exact same time when James meanders through the doorway, carrying three large pizzas and furrowing his brows at them.

“Oh I see!” He exclaims, adjusting his wireframe glasses before setting down the food. “You two have finally told them all that you’re shagging?”

Flabbergasted, Peter turns angrily over to the couple at hand, is only assuaged when he sees that they’re just as gobsmacked at James’s observation.

“You knew! This entire time! You speccy pillock!” Sirius barks through his laughter.

“Oy, course I did you plonker. You two really aren’t very sneaky at all.”

“We so are,” Sirius sniffs indignantly.

“Why you thought we never heard the headboard of your bed smacking the wall, and Remus just coincidentally being over the next morning,” James continues, snickering now.

“We’re sly you bastard! ’S not our fault that our friends are a bunch of slags.”

“I need a good, long kip I think.” Remus says to no one in particular, and Peter’s never agreed with him more.

.-

At the end of the day, Peter is thankful that he’s not responsible for anymore secrets amongst the tight nit friend group, but he does however regret the fact that Sirius and Remus seem to have taken the exposure of their relationship to mean that they could lay claim to either apartment at any time of day for a good, loud rump.

It’s fucking awful.


	3. The One With The List

Remus is a simple sort of bloke, he is— honest, especially when compared to the handful of natural disasters that are his best friends. Remus likes the small things in life. He likes waking up early enough that he can buy his favorite scone from the cafe downstairs to have besides his morning tea. He likes the quiet solitude of the university library where he teaches, surrounded only by the scent of parchment and the scratching of his pen against paper. He especially likes his and Lily’s allotted roommate nights where it’s just the pair of them, spending time together like they were undergrads again, which could manifest as anything ranging from getting wine drunk and throwing popcorn at the telly while watching their favorite Meg Ryan Christmas movies, all the way to convincing each other that getting matching tattoos at two o’clock in the morning at a skeevy joint— one that probably hasn’t passed a health inspection in over a decade— is somehow a positively wonderful idea. But if he’s being honest, what Remus likes most of all— what he downright loves— is the little gasp of a moan that Sirius makes whenever Remus nips at the hinge of his jaw, just like he’s doing now, straddled on his lap and knotting his hands into Sirius’s hair, and just reveling in the sound of it

— God it’s so brilliant.

“Re— Rem,” Sirius practically whines, his head thrown back against the sofa and his hands tight on either end of Remus’s narrow waste— Not willing to press him any closer, but simply unable to push him away. “If you keep do— Keep on doing that thing with your teeth, I won’t be able to get to work.”

“I reckon that’s mission accomplished Pads,” he says lowly, flushing when he feels Sirius’s long fingers dipping beneath his shirt and fluttering over his spine. A promise of something more, a promise of something Remus is practically giddy with excitement over— Well— Erm, that is until…

“Remus John Lupin God so help me I will yank your teeth out one by one myself if you don’t quit it right now,” Lily warns hotly, still in the midst of painting her toenails a bright fuchsia on the loveseat to their left. Remus had been helping her, but that was before Sirius swaggered in here, looking all outrageously sexy and smiling all cockily and making Remus’s heart pound like a God forsaken jackhammer.

And what? He was just suppose to ignore that?

“Alright, alright, retract the claws,” Remus huffs bemusedly as he climbs off, quickly pecking the corner of Sirius’s mouth just to tease, laughing when Lily only sticks her tongue out in retaliation.

“See Evans, what I don’t get is if you’re so bitter in your single existence, Jem is just across the hall, and extremely whipped for you to even smile his way.” Sirius tells her, not so discretely adjusting his downstairs before standing up fully.

Lily glares up at him, wielding her discarded nail filer like an especially sharp sword, stabbing it his direction with pointed intent. “Oy, listen Black. The day I go out with that pompous toerag is the day hell freezes over.”

“Charming,” he preens before dipping down to kiss Remus a final time before heading off. “You’ll come over mine tonight, yeah? We’ve gotta finish that boring documentary of yours.”

“’S not boring Sirius,” Remus sniffs with an indignant tilting to his pale head. “You’d know as much if you didn’t keep getting distracted.”

“Oh but Moons, I much prefer those distractions,” he says slyly, winking just for good measure, and making it so Remus feels himself go scarlet.

“You two are vomit inducing,” Lily tells him once Sirius finally leaves, depositing herself on the sofa besides him and lying back so that her head is cradled onto his shoulder.

Remus snorts, scolding her with no real heat when he taps her nose, “Rude.”

“Whatever, ’s true. I mean next thing we know it and you’ll be shacked up in your own flat, with a pug, and eventually a couple brats of your own.”

“Hah,” Remus breathes out meekly, avoiding her gaze as he grabs for his laptop to open up the PDF he was suppose to be reading before class. 

“Wait, what was that look Re?”

“What look?”

“You know what look you arse.”

“This’s my face Lily, sorry to disappoint.” 

“You can be so God damn contrary,” she reproves with her most unimpressed face, (Hint, it’s very, very flat). Now tell me what you’re keeping secret.” 

“You’re mad.”

“C’mon Remus,” she jostles his arm for good measure. “Tell me! Sirius proposed?”

“Oh God no! And don’t you go repeating that, else he’ll start getting ideas,” Remus shutters, can’t imagine being anyone’s husband before turning at least thirty.

“Alright…. Hmm, He asked you to do that thing in bed again.”

“I can’t believe I even told you about that.”

“Oh you prick, just tell me! It can’t be something this awful! Oh my,” She slaps her hand against her chest over exasperatedly, fanning herself like she was in some picture from the forties. “You’re with child.”

Remus wrinkles his nose at her, completely over it. “You’re sick. Demented. Truly, just give me the word and I’d gladly get you an appointment with a specialist to check out that dark place you call a mind.”

Lily dissolves into peals of laughter, collapsing back so that she has the perfect excuse to kick at him instead. “C’mon Remus, tell me!”

“Alright, fine, fine! Just quit your assault you bint.”

Sitting up fully now, Lily just flips him the bird and looks at him expectantly. “Well?”

“Well—“ Remus tugs at the cuff of his sweater, before meeting her steely, green gaze head on. “Well, I reckon that living with Sirius wouldn’t be the most horrendous thing—“

Lily looks fully unconvinced. “It wouldn’t be? Have you seen the pigsty that is the apartment across the hall?”

“ Erm, I actually expect that it’d be quite nice.”

It takes another moment longer before Lily hikes up her brows in understanding, squeezing Remus’s forearm gleefully. “Oh my God Re!”

“You’re hurting me.”

“You want to live with’m! Like honest to God cohabitation?”

“It’s a thought I’ve had,” he admits, going flushed.

“You’re really in it for the long haul you berk!”

“Is this news?” Remus asks, stealthily pulling his arm away from the continuous assault and pinning her with a determined glare. “We’ve been together for a bit.”

“You dated Fabian for nearly three years and never once considered living with him!” Lily counters with far too much smugness for Remus’s liking. 

“Can we change the subject now? Like maybe back to that conversation we had last night, about your undying love for James?”

“Oy! All I said is that he sometimes smelt nice!”

Remus leers at her, reveling in having the upper hand. “You’re smitten.”

“You’re a bloody plonker.”

“You wanna have his footie obsessed, speccy kids.”

“Remus, love I adore you, but I’m not above killing in cold blood.” He tosses his head back in frothy, unconcerned laughter, and narrowly dodges the punch she aims to his shoulder. “Besides, even if I was mad enough to actually take him seriously, he’d need at least a decade to get over the betrayal of Sirius moving out and promising himself to the likes of you.”

Remus only pulls his bottom lip between his teeth with a shrug. “You don’t know if Sirius would actually say yes if I asked."

“Oh please,” Lily scoffs with a lofty crossing to her arms. “Sirius would figure out how to jump over the moon from earth if you asked him.”

“He’s ridiculous,” Remus relents, smiling in that way that Lily always calls goopy, and his mom has designated as his Sirius smile. (“Equal parts fond and exasperated”). 

“So what is it then?” Lily asks, expression gone shrewd. “You don’t know if you wanna ask’m.”

Remus shrugs helplessly. “’S a rather big step.”

“Hmm, that’s true. Well you know what we have to do then, right?”

“Pretend we never discussed this and go back to watching Nene rip a new one at the other real housewives?” He asks hopefully, and isn’t actually surprised when Lily just shakes her head at him before skipping off to her room and coming back with a legal pad and an assortment of sparkly pens.

“A Pros and Cons list!”

“Lily, no.”

“Lily, yes.” She retorts, and there’s no doubt in Remus’s mind that she was once an evil queen of some far away land as she brandishes the materials at him.

“This never helps.”

“This always helps you lying arse.”

“Fine, well then I just don’t like it,” Remus counters airily, isn’t the least bit shocked that she only ignores him while drawing a line down the paper and marking each column accordingly. 

“The purple one’s for pro and the orange is con,” she explains, excitement teeming her pale eyes.

“You just don’t like orange cause it makes you look like a misshapen popsicle,” Remus goads, but shutters back when Lily oh so kindly reminds him about their criminology class freshman year and all the different ways she remembers how to kill a man using a mere toothbrush, once more clarifying that she has no moral qualms over the topic.

He repeats, an evil queen of a far away land.

“So shall we begin?”

“If we must,” Remus sighs, preparing himself for a long afternoon. 

.-

Remus can hear the Brock Hampton song booming through the speakers of Sirius’s apartment before he even walks in, totally unsurprised to finding the place in utter disarray— obviously in the wake of another failed attempt to build a pillow fort. James and Peter are screaming at one another in varying tones of fury while Sirius himself is feeding those damnable ducks spoons full of whip cream, as if the sugar doesn’t make them go crazed.

Remus has no idea what he’s walked into and really wishes he simply had not.

“Take it back Wormtail you pathetic excuse of a man!” James shouts, leaping up on the counter for good measure and beginning to bombard the blonde with a barrage of almonds, Peter defends himself with a discarded pizza box that Remus can only hope isn’t as old as its smell suggests.

“Brooklyn Nine Nine makes Parks and Rec it’s bitch,” Peter tells James with a stone cold stare from above the Burro’s logo, one that feels more like it’s been crafted for war over some stupid argument about Michael Schur sitcoms.

“Oy you little rodent! Leslie Knope deserves for you to bow at her feet!”

“Just because you simp for bossy women doesn’t mean we all do,” Peter sniffs, finally spotting Remus standing awkwardly between the hall and their apartment, and waves him hello. “Let’s ask Moony what he thinks.”

“That’s not fair! Amy Santiago is him with tits!” James objects, finally jumping down and popping the leftover almonds into his mouth.

“Erm— I think I should go?”

“Nonsense Moons!” Sirius jumps up quickly, causing one of the ducks— Prongs Jr from the looks of it— to snap it’s beak at his toe. “Buggering fuck.”

“I regret so much of my life right now.” Remus intones as Sirius grabs for his hand to lead him to his bedroom. 

“Let’s see if I can help in the healing process love.”

“Listen here berks, you best keep it quiet. I’ve got to get in the office early tomorrow, and I’d like a night free of nightmares.”

Remus flushes and Sirius only throws James a V shaped salute before slamming the door shut and immediately nuzzling his nose against Remus’s neck, and his hands beneath his jumper.

“Mmm, didn’t you wanna finish that documentary?” Remus teases as he stretches his head back and hooks his arms around Sirius’s shoulders as he leads them to his bed, bouncing on the balls of his feet to kiss Sirius gently just because he can.

“If that’s the sorta ambiance that’ll get you into the mood love, then just give me the word,” Sirius nips at the hinge of Remus’s jaw, sliding his hands slowly down to his arse to begin kneading at the flesh their, and making Remus’s vision go starry.

“Handsy prick,” Remus says with a laugh that breaks off into a groan when Sirius lines up in the right breath so that their dicks slide up against one another as he continues his assault up the column of Remus’s long neck.

“Contrary bastard,” Sirius retorts as they lie back in bed, still wrapped up into one another and it’s all going as splendid as ever— a glorious orgasm within sight and his gorgeous boyfriend draped all over him— Well that is until Sirius moves to begin undressing Remus with the same tender way he always does, and his grasp accidentally grabs at his jackets pocket while trying to caress Remus’s side, and he hears it. The crinkling of paper that falls out and lands at their feet.

Sirius pulls back, obviously annoyed from the interruption, but Remus— Remus has gone fucking petrified. No worse than petrified, he’s like in a stance, one where his heart is beating to loudly, and his neck is breaking into a sweat and he can only watch as Sirius bends down to pick up the paper to waggle it at him cheekily. The paper with the lists on it. The lists that Lily made Remus write up earlier that morning, the one that Remus would absolutely die if Sirius read.

Shite.

“Oh oo! What do we got here Moons? An illicit love note from one of the starry eyed kids from your intro class?” Sirius teases cheekily as he slowly unfolds the paper. Remus should probably pounce right about now, grab for Sirius’s wrists, or scream out loud for him not to read it. But he can’t, it’s been done, it’s too late. Sirius has it open up wide and has got his gorgeous, pale eyes flickering up and down it’s contents, brows furrowing and his easy demeanor from before obviously slipping away bit by bit as his smile melts from effervescent to peeved off.

“Leaves his socks everywhere, doesn’t know how to clean up after himself, listens to music too loudly—“

“Sirius—“

He raises a hand in a stop motion. “Oh no Moons, I can go all night evidently. I also leave the telly on too loud when I’m watching footie with James, which personally I find a bit redundant. Oh but I suppose you make up for that when you write here that I also use up all the hot water when I’m showering. Oh and, brilliant, I also—“

Remus pushes the paper down from his eye sight, sitting up so that they’re side by side and probably looks as put out as he feels— which is admittedly a lot. “You weren’t suppose to see that.”

Remus realizes that he made a grave mistake when his words only cause Sirius’s glare to deepen, and his free hand to clench in a fist as he waspishly asks, “What is this a common occurrence? You and Evans plotting out all my worst traits every week to figure out if you’ll break up with me or not?”

And it’s like the breaths been punched right out of Remus as he gapes at him, wide eyed and stunned. “What? No, of course not!”

“Don’t deny it Remus I know that Evans has got these sparkly pens ever since last Valentine’s day when she returned James’s poem with grammar corrections and a ten page letter why she’d rather lick the toe of a homeless man living on the tube than going out with’m.”

“Oh bloody hell Sirius, are you actually this daft!”

“That wasn’t on the list, but maybe you can remember it for next week?” Sirius retorts scathingly, and Remus feels a locomotive sized migraine coming on.

“You damn pillock will you just read the pros already.”

Sirius’s handsome face scrunches up like a too ripe tomato. “Pardon.”

Remus, with a forever suffering sigh, snatches the paper from him and begins reading loudly and with intent. “He’s bloody remarkable. He always knows how to make me laugh. He’s the only person who can make me feel good after a hard day. He’s the best thing to wake up to, and I hate it when we can’t sleep in the same bed because of our stupid schedules. I want us to be a family and I want him by my side everyday and every night.”

Remus finally looks up from his impassioned reading, his turn to glare at a stunned and sheepish looking Sirius who’s gazing down at him with tentative eyes that glitter with hope and wanting and something not even Remus could discern. “Family?”

“Shall I go on?”

“Moons, you said you wanted us to be family,” Sirius repeats more emphatically, but still so cautious.

“This wasn’t some sorta ritualistic exercise you pillock,” Remus reproves, rolling up the paper and swatting him on the nose with it like he was actually the puppy he often behaved as. “This was just Lily’s warped way of showing me that me being nervous to ask you to move in with me in our own apartment, just the two of us, was ridiculous. Because no matter how annoying you are—“

“You love me,” Sirius finished for him, positively glowing with a megawatt grin replacing his solemn expression and making him as incandescent as his namesake.

“Lord knows why, but yes, I love you in quite a drastic degree.”

“And you want to move in with me.” Sirius leers now, moving closer and pressing their foreheads together.

“I always get first shower and your on dish duty every night,” Remus tries to sniff airily, can’t help the way he laughs buoyantly instead, locking his arms around Sirius’s neck and pulling Sirius down so that he can snog him nice and proper.

“That sounds like a dream Remus, a fucking dream,” Sirius breathes out, kissing him softly on the lips and falling perfectly in the space between his legs, and cupping his hands around Remus’s face a if he was actually something delicate and to be cherished. 

Remus’s never felt more sure in a decision in his life.

“So is that a yes then?” Remus asks, only a bit diffident with a quirk of his brow.

“Well if we bring the kids, of course my love,” Sirius sneers, which somehow queues an indignant squawk from one of the ducks in the other room, followed by Peter shouting that he needs the first aid kit and James cackling something about karma.

“I officially rescind my offer.”

“Oh no you don’t Moons! you initialed and everything! You’re stuck with me,” Sirius crows delightedly before finally getting back to business in getting him undressed with delirious intent.

Remus thinks that he could get accustomed to this sort of madness.


	4. The One Where No One Is Ready

Their is T minus forty-five minutes until James is expected to enter the arena for this year’s Espy awards, where he— a longterm representative of the UK’s top athletes, with a social media following that can rival a B list celebrity’s— will be presenting the award for the best international football player, and rumor has it that Ludo fucking Bagman is going to win. This is a dream come true— more than that even! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity! And it was thanks to his mentor, Minerva McGonagall, that he even can do something that he’s dreamt of doing since his days playing in the child leagues as a lad. It’s going to be one of the best nights of his bloody life. So it only makes sense that his sodding best friends aren’t even taking this with an ounce of seriousness. In fact, instead of doing the decent thing and getting ready as efficiently as possible, those pricks are lounging over the breakfast table goading Sirius into drinking the fat from the icebox that Lily stored for whichever cooking masterpiece she is sure to whip up later this week. Not a one of them even showered.

Bloody blunders.

“Oi, Moons,” Sirius crows loudly, grinning wolfishly down at him with a glint in his steely eyes and a smirk on his face. “Promise if I chug this down you’ll give us a little kiss.”

James feels a migraine coming on.

“In your dreams Black,” Remus retorts, wrinkling his nose disapprovingly, while Marlene only guffaws and James feels his head literally beginning to pulse with pure exasperation.

Absolute pricks..

“You gits, we’ve got less than an hour till we have to call the cabs. Will you all just get dressed for Christ’s sake.”

“No need for the snappy tone Prongs.” Sirius says with a cluck to his tongue.

“It’ll take us only a tick to get ready,” Remus says, waving him off airily. And James really regrets the fact that he’s moved in with Sirius now that James and Lily are in marital bliss. Sirius’s a bad influence on him, and James should’ve predicted as much.

“Besides, ’s not my fault your wife’s hogging the bathroom,” Marlene tacks on— having dashed over here after her shift at the same firm as James, still dressed in her slacks and leather jacket. 

“Well Marls, you don’t have to get your hair done now that you’ve chopped it off as short as your ears,” Lily defends herself as she steps out the aforementioned bathroom in James’s powder blue robe, thankfully her makeup is set and hair is pulled back into an artful bun and she’s as beautiful as ever. James can’t help but feel his insides go all goopy and his stomach begins to tumble every time she even looks his way, especially when she smiles that private little grin that she only uses on him.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph does he love her to his very core, tells her as much once kissing her softly amidst the groans of the other three. “You are my angel.”

“I know,” Lily preens, green eyes bright and dimples in full effect. “Now I’ve just got to pick out what to wear and we can go.”

James thanks her profusely before pivoting back around to Marlene, begs her to get on with it already.

“Alright, alright potter. God you men only like to rush, no time for foreplay.”

“I like foreplay,” Remus contends as he sits on the loveseat and begins flipping through a magazine Lily’s left laying around, which makes it so Sirius’s face goes wrecked and pale and very nearly makes the cup of fat in his hand fall to the ground— is only saved by James’s old footie reflexes.

“Get it the fuck together man,” James hisses with a glower. But then quickly amends, “But not tonight. Tonight just get dressed for fuck’s sake.” There is absolutely no time to deal with this melodrama between Sirius and Remus that basically amounts to heady glances and licked lips and sexual tension that’s frankly obscene.

Sirius swallows down, hard, and gives a perfunctory nod, but instead of walking across the hall to bloody change already, he only sits besides Remus and grins at him in a very scary, very intense way. James is almost convinced that poor Moony will end up naked and swaddled in saran wrap— Dexter style— by the end of the night. But he can’t warn him considering that there’s a knock to the door and he finds Dorcas—  
beautiful and elegant in a pale yellow dress that contrasts in a lovely way against her dark brown skin— on the other side. “You look fantastic.” James breathes out, worshipingly.

“I know,” Dorcas beams as she struts in, helping herself to the pita crisps and hummus left out. “But don’t let Marls hear you else she gets all pouty.”

“Do not!” Marlene yells from the loo, to which Dorcas only silently mouths, does so, over James’s shoulder to a snickering Sirius.

“Right, well seeing as the ladies are all accounted for, we’re just waiting for Wormtail and you berks,” he points angrily at the pair now arguing over the remote. 

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Minnie can be left waiting,” Sirius snorts.

“Our table is at the very front Pads! She’ll see us walking in late! And then they might give my slot to that prick Mulciber!”

“A travesty,” Sirius intones.

“He might be on to something Pads,” Remus points out. “It takes an hour just for you to primp your hair.”

“Rome wasn’t built in a day Moony!”

“Are you implying that your hair is as extravagant as Rome? Because I think you might be seriously over estimating yourself.” Remus leers, and Sirius only gapes at the lip. God, if James has to watch them dancing around each other for another day he’s going to go rudding gray at the temples.

“You are a plonker Lupin!” Remus narrowly avoids Sirius’s punch aimed for his shoulder, and scurries off across the hall, Sirius’s gaze never leaving his arse all the while.

“That’s lewd,” Dorcas tells him.

“Pitiful from where I’m looking at it.” James snorts.

Sirius only glowers and tosses them the bird. “Come off it.”

“I bet you’d like to come off with’m.” Dorcas sneers, and James actually let’s himself laugh at the increasingly reddening face Sirius has just pulled in retort. Thankfully, none of his curses have a chance to spill out because of Peter strolling in— clad in a suit that’s a little short on the legs and a little tight in the middle. But he looks presentable at least, which is more than what Sirius could say.

“What’s wrong Pete?” Dorcas asks him as she perches on the armrest of the sofa.

“What do you mean what’s wrong? He’s dressed. He’s brilliant!” James beams, clapping him on the shoulder, noticing a beat too late how Peter’s acting a bit dodgy— hands rinsing in front of him and eyes darting every which way.

“I messaged Marry.”

“Oh Pete.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Why the fuck would you do that!”

The three of them chorus in various tones of disappointment.

“She, erm. Well She posted this picture of her at home with her puppy and I saw a sweater.”

“A sweater?” Sirius repeats, wry as all get out.

“A man’s sweater I mean.”

Dorcas rolls her eyes at him now. “Sweaters don’t have genders Peter.”

“Well this one did!” Peter fumes indignantly. 

James raises his hands, as if he’s calming a spooked animal. “All right, all right. It was a man’s sweater. What did you message her bout it?”

Peter ducks his head once more, flushing pink. “I asked if her new boyfriend is as allergic to Pippa as I was.” Queue another round of discontent moaning.

“You bloody imbecile.” Sirius groans.

“It all just happened so quickly!”

“Things Sirius’s conquests say on their walk of shame for a thousand Alex,” Remus snickers as he steps back inside, fitted in an admittedly fetching, charcoal suit and a different colored tie in each of his hands. “Oh, you all look shifty.”

“Don’t ever criticize my shagging prowess again Lupin!”

“Peter made a mess of things with Marry,” Dorcas says before Sirius can get on one of his tangents.

“Oh Pete.” 

“It happened so quickly,” he tries to explain once more.

Remus only shakes his head and pats his shoulder agreeably. “Sure it did.”

“Well did she read it yet?” Dorcas asks.

“Erm, she was online when I sent her the snap.”

“Oh Peter,” they all groan.

“I need a minute.” He says before retreating to the balcony.

James checks his watch, exactly a half an hour until they all have to go. No time for Peter’s dramatics. Maybe tomorrow James’ll buy him a pint and let him cry over it but they really need to get on with things already.

“C’mon pads, get up.” Remus instructs, trying to tug him off the couch, to which Sirius only smirks.

“You forfeited when you got up Lupin.”

“Oi! I got up to get dressed so James wouldn’t go barmy on us!”

“And I thank you Remus my sweet.” James pipes in while handing Marlene her bag of clothes she had left by the table.

“Pshaw, doesn’t matter. You left it.”

“I left for like five bloody minutes you arse!” Remus shouts.

“So you agree then,” Sirius counters with a cocked brow. “You left it.”

James has to deftly pull Remus away before he pounces on him. “Padfoot don’t be a wanker and just get up and get dressed, won’t you.”

Sirius eyes them both before a look James can’t decipher passes across his face, leaving behind a grim determination. “Righto mates.” He leaps up right then, snatching the cushions up with him, and swaggering off.

“Oi! What the hell Padfoot!”

“I gave you the seat Lupin.”

“But— But—“ Remus sputters. “You took the cushions! That’s the entire ruddy essence of the seat!”

“That’s right Lupin!” Sirius glows with far too much smugness for the situation at hand. “I took your essence!”

Remus is left balking after him and James promptly chugs down a handful of Ibuprofen.

“All right boys?” Marlene asks as she strolls out the bathroom in her black dress and heals, pecking Dorcas hello..

“I’m going to murder Sirius bloody Black with my bare hands,” Remus answers, fists tight around his ties and his face scrunched up mulishly.

“I’ll help!” Dorcas crows, before beaming at Lily who’s just clambered in— half dressed with a shawl in one hand and a different blouse entirely in the other.

“Do you guys reckon I should wear this with my purple pumps, or those new flats I got with a nice pair of slacks.”

“Lily, my love, the angel of my heart, the stars of my night,” James begins, a hand against his chest. “We’ve got twenty-seven minutes till we have to be downstairs.”

“Oh I know love, I just want to look nice for you and your big night,” she says poutingly, kisses his cheek before glancing over at the girls. “Wotcher Dorcas, you and Marlene look lovely.”

“I know,” Dorcas preens.”

“You’re in a jaunty mood?”

“She’s helping Lupin murder Black later tonight,” Marlene explains, lips curled with laughter. 

“Oh lovely.”

“I’ll show him essence,” Remus growls from where he’s still holding vigil to the shut door.

James rolls back his head now, eyes alone definitely not cutting it anymore. “Damn everything.”

“Oh Re you look so smart in that suit,” Lily crows, walking over to him, but begins to cluck her tongue. “But neither of those ties match.”

Sirius used the rest of my ties to use as a rope for his halloween costume last month.”

“Of course he did.”

“He’s dead Lily.”

Lily smooths back his hair dotingly. “Sure he is darling, now c’mon. James has got a wonderful velvet tie that would look ravishing with this fit.” Remus lets Lily drag him away while Still muttering about Sirius and essences and the god forsaken guillotine of all things.

“There’s a video!” Peter shouts as he rushes back inside— blonde hair mussed and cheeks reddening as bright as Lily’s hair.

“Bloody hell Peter!” Marlene scolds, hand pressed to her chest. “Don’t be a git and scare us like that.”

Peter only repeats the fact that there’s a video— of what? James does not know nor does he want to find out. God he just wants them to act mentally sound for one damn night.

“A video!”

“Settle yourself Peter,” Dorcas scolds, a hand on her hip and a scowl twisting her pretty face. James reckons that if she were his history teacher in secondary school he might’ve actually been scared enough not to fall asleep. “Now explain yourself.”

“Mary posted a video of Pippa rolling over and there was a bloke in the background laughing along!”

“You saw a random bloke?” Marlene asks.

“No but I heard’m! Clear as day.”

Dorcas sighs, clamping a hand over his shoulder in solace. “Eh, think logically Peter, you lot only split up a couple weeks ago. I seriously doubt Mary’s gone off and shagged someone else so soon.”

“But I heard’m! Maybe she finally realized she could do better.”

“Oh none of that bollocks Peter Pettigrew.” Marlene bellows, joining her girlfriend to stand in front of him now. “Oi, wasn’t she close with that younger brother of her’s?”

Before Marlene’ even finished asking the question, Peter’s worried expression melts away, brightening ten fold and beginning to grin like an absolute lune. “Oi McKinnon! You bloody genius! Your right! It’s Marcus! It’s definitely Marcus!”

“Brilliant!” James hurriedly interjects, the time ticking down to only twenty minutes left. “It was obviously, certainly Marcus this entire time. Now why don’t you be a doll Peter and call us the cabs, I don’t want to risk not grabbing one in time. Especially in this miserable weather.”

Peter nods cheerily, picking up his mobile and idly noting that he’s begun to feel a bit peckish.

“There’s some fat in the fridge if you want,” Marlene calls after him, her snickering dining down once the front door to the flat swings open to a harried looking Sirius. James is about ready to row considering that the only notable differences seem to be the fact he’s no longer wearing his DR Martens and his hair’s even more disheveled than before.

“Where is Lupin!”

“Oi, Black! Not the bloody time for your little lovers quarrel.” James snaps.

“He took my pants!”

“Pardon?” Dorcas wheezes with pure delight.

“That sodding little slag stole my pants!”

“You stole my essence!” Remus bellows, storming back into the main room, shirtless and heated. James almost feels bad for Sirius who’s gone all flushed and blotchy at the sight.

“Remus! No, no, no! Why are you getting undressed! We want you all to be fully damn clothed!”

“Oh, that was my doing,” Lily pipes in, thankfully clad in a lovely, green number that brings out her eyes. “I thought that if Remus changed into one of your white undershirts that it’ll help accentuate the purple tie.”

James really wishes he could stay properly angry at Lily for longer than a second at a time so that he can rebuke them for this little dress up game. But alas, he simply can not, so he’s only left to nod like a daft idiot at her explanation.

“And then I smelt rubbish and so I knew Sirius had returned.” Remus snarls.

“I smell like a fucking field of daisies!”

“Bet your trousers won’t smell that way after an entire night pantsless,” Remus sneers, and James silently reminds himself never to cross the scrappy bugger, (It’s always the quiet ones indeed).

“That’s not on Moony! I don’t want to have my bits out for show, everyone will be focussed on their magnificence over poor Jem and his little presenting gig.”

Heatedly, James tosses him the bird.

“Then give me back the essence!” Remus retorts caustically.

“Fine Lupin, you want to play it this way. Game on!” With one final, haughty harumph, Sirius dashes over to his own apartment and Remus only scoffs as he rounds back to the bedroom. 

“What does that even mean! Absolutely nothing that’s what! Damn arse!” Remus grumbles to himself, slamming the door shut after Lily follows, still barefoot herself.

Discretely, James checks his watch once more, feeling a looming sense of dread once realizing that there’s only fifteen minutes left until they have to be out the door.

“Hiya Marcus,” James swings his head up so quickly that he swears he’s got vertigo, but at least Dorcas and Marlene look just as concerned from where they’re also gawking at Peter. “I just wanted to see if you were in town— Oh yeah, yeah. I thought I heard you on the back of that last video Mary posted.”

“Hang up Pettigrew!” Marlene hisses, trying to grab for the phone and is elbowed out the way for her trouble.

“Oh yeah, she did block e after the whole snag with me running over her cat. But you know how it is, making a fake account— Oh, erm I didn’t think it was that weird really.”

“Hang up Peter!” James yells, feeling absolutely hopeless. “Hang up the damn mobile!”

“I know plenty of people who do that! No need to get all shirty!” Peter hisses at Marcus, the color slowly draining out of his face. “No, no you don’t need to tell Maz, ’s not that serious!”

“I need a bloody shot.” Dorcas moans.

“What’s happened?” Remus asks from where he and Lily stroll out the bedroom, fully dressed thank god and both glancing over at a sweating Peter with concern.

“Mary’s surely going to getting a restraining order,” Marlene says with no context, shrinking back when the flat’s door opens once more to Sirius.

“You mad wanker,” James breathes out, not even having enough wits about him to shout. Sirius is standing there, absolutely drowning in countless sweaters pulled up over one another and sweat pants over sweat pants.

“What the bloody hell are you doing!” Remus screams.

“You take my pants, and I wear all your clothes Lupin,” Sirius grins glowingly, eyes glinting with pure mischief.

“You’re going to stretch them all out you absolute beast!”

“I’ve got to say Moons, your sweats are real comfortable without any pants, nice and soft.” Sirius does a forward lunge right then, wiggling around for good measure. So James really shouldn’t be surprised when Remus actually pounces, knocking him over to the ground.

“My money’s on Lupin, the scrappy bugger,” Marlene cackles.

“I can’t believe I did that,” Peter groans, slamming his head against the table, while Sirius and Remus continue to writhe on the ground like a pair of bloody mutts in heat.

“Get it together you plonkers! We need to leave in ten minutes!”

“He, oof, he took my essence!”

Sirius beams victoriously when he finally gets Remus beneath him and pulls up for breath, “You took my pants before I ever did that Lupin.” 

“Because you’re a insufferable berk!” Remus hisses, wiggling around and canting forwards, both his and Sirius’s faces going suddenly red, and James shutters to think of what might’ve slid up against each other to elicit that response. Though his imagination is buoyed when Sirius suddenly rocks forwards in a very deliberate way, his head dipping down closer to Remus and it’s like instinct when their lips devour one another’s smolderingly, Remus’s hands fisted in Sirius’s hair, and Sirius’s own sliding around to cup his arse cheeks.

“Oh for bloody hell,” James snarls, absolutely fed up. He grabs the cup of discarded fat and pours it on the pair of them, making it so they both jump apart in a flash— panting breaths and flushed cheeked and both of the sporting obvious hard ons— even through the layers that Sirius has got on.

“You lot have got eight minutes and thirty five seconds to get it the bloody hell together, change into something respectable and then meet me downstairs,” James instructs, seething and brooking no arguments. “Now disperse damn it!”

.-

They end up fifteen minutes late, and McGonagall just gives James a cool glance above her flute of wine as they scramble to the table, but it’s fine, because James gets to shake Ludo Bagman’s hand and everything while up on stage— Even if Remus and Sirius make a conspicuous retreat to the gents the moment he sits back down and don’t meet up with everyone until after the ceremony ends.

James repeats, bloody blunders.


	5. The One With The Soulmate

“You are seriously insatiable tonight,” Remus rebukes, swatting Sirius’s hand away from where he was eagerly grabbing at his arse for another round of fun, positively delicious, bloody remarkable, mind-blowing fun. God Sirius thanks every deity above that he fell in love with such a secretive, little wildcat.

“Oi, wasn’t the whole purpose of this getting married shtick so we could do that whenever we please?” Sirius harrumphs, flopping back on their bed, starfished out as he watches his ridiculously beautiful husband dropping his towel to the floor and digging through their shared drawer for a new pair of pants. He really tries his damndest to not focus on how the dying evening light filters through their room’s open window, bathing Remus in this resplendent, almost heavenly glow, turning the tips of his eyelashes as golden as his hair and caressing the dips and valleys of his lithe muscles, accentuating the smattering of freckles on his thighs and the dimples he’s got on the small of his back. God Sirius can’t take his eyes off of him for even a moment. “Because if not I reckon I can sue for false advertising.”

Remus only sniffs at him, affecting a lofty air as he pulls on the green, turtle net sweater that Sirius especially likes on him for how it brings out the amber flecks in Remus’s emerald eyes and how it hugs his physique in the exact right breath to show off how bloody good looking he is. “We did that right when you came home from the firm, and then again in the shower less than five minutes ago. Don’t tell me it was that forgettable?” He asks with a pointed hiking of the brow.

“Never my lovely little croissant,” Sirius contends hurriedly, popping up from his lounging position to snatch for Remus’s boney wrists, and dragging the shorter man down to sit in his still very naked lap. “You are the best shag and handsomest fellow and—“ Remus claps his hand over Sirius’s mouth, probably trying to come off stern, but Sirius could totally catch the way the corner of his lips begin to flinch upwards— he’s endeared and Sirius knows it.

“Enough of that bollocks, else I’ll get a cavity.”

“But my beautiful crumpet, I want to sing your praises,” Sirius pouts mockingly, kisses the tip of his nose, while one of his well built arms slings around Remus’s slender waste, with his free hand slowly crawling up his inner thigh, thwarted nearly immediately by Remus standing up in a huff.

“Like a bloody mutt.” He scolds.

“Only for you my delightfully delectable cabbage,” Sirius leers, finally standing up and taking the proffered slacks so to get ready for this little soiree Lily’s law firm is holding for their fiftieth anniversary.

“When do you reckon these awful nicknames will drop off?”

“You’re the one who said you like it when I speak French at you,” Sirius goads, smacking Remus’s pert arse as he struts into their master-bath.

“Oi, when it’s spoken in the ruddy language, and not some awful accent you’ve conjured up.” Remus counters moodily before he grabs for one of the colognes on their vanity, and Sirius only smiles privately to himself, so beyond besotted with him that it’s getting detrimental for his health, exhibit A being how he very nearly squirts his aftershave right into his eyes.

But God Remus is so worth it.

.-

The ballroom of the swanky, Mayfair hotel is dressed up in all the opulence that should be expected for a soiree made up of the throng of stuffy, stuck up solicitors that are present. Sirius is not impressed in the slightest, even if he can work the room for one of these parties as effortlessly as breathing thanks to his upbringing as the son of a Lorde and baron, though he still hates the ambiance of it all, so much so that it makes his skin crawl to this day, but he promised to be here and at least Remus is right besides him, with Sirius’s hand in his back pocket and hazel eyes flickering to him every few minutes or so, as if attuned to Sirius and all his mercurial moods.

God he loves him.

“Alice and I have been shagging non stop,” Frank says, which works well enough to bring Sirius’s attention away from wanting to drag Remus behind the champaign fountain so to have his wicked way with him, and back to the conversation they’re all having; even if that means that instead of looking passive, Sirius is sneering over at Frank.

“Dacorum man.”

Frank apologizes, beyond glum. “We just don’t know what to do. The doctors say that we shouldn’t have this much difficulty with it, but we just checked before coming and still, nothing.”

“I’m sorry mate, that’s awful.” Remus tells him, and Dorcas nods along, but Sirius just rolls his eyes.

“We’re not even thirty yet for fuck’s sake,” he tells him. “Maybe ’s a sign for you both to stop trying to ruin your lives with a baby.”

“Shut it Sirius,” Dorcas hisses, kicking at his ankle hard enough to make him wince.

“Ouch, hey! I’m just saying, a kid’s a lot of responsibility, and commitment.”

“I’ve been with Alice since we were seventeen Black,” Frank tells him hotly . “I think I’m already properly committed.”

“Then what’s the point of the kid!” 

Frank raises his brows, floundering with no words as if he just could not comprehend Sirius and all his Sirius-ness, which is fair, the only two people who’s been able to do as much turned out being his brother, (James), and his lover, (Remus)… Speaking of which…

“I’m sorry he’s acting like such an arse Frank, he doesn’t mean it.” the sandy blonde says cooly, giving Sirius one of his looks that he usually keeps designated for his more rowdy students. “Do you.”

Sirius glares at him before looking back at Frank and nodding stiffly. “Sorry mate, you and Flores would be marvelous parents, I’m just being prickish.”

“Nothing knew then,” Frank says, but it’s coupled with an amiable grin so Sirius knows he’s off the hook.

“Right, well why don’t I make it up to you by grabbing you a drink? Yeah?”

“See if they’ve got an iced white?”

“Me too Black,” Dorcas scoffs, doesn’t even bother to look at him to make the command.

“Righto,” Sirius claps Frank’s shoulder with a friendly squeeze, winking at Dorcas and glancing over at Remus before he goes. “Vodka tonic?”

“With lemon please.”

Sirius nods, still pecks him on the lips even if they’re sorta in a fight, as if Sirius could ever stay away for too long.

.-

By the grace of God, the open bar is mostly vacant, except for a familiar head of messy hair he’s considered family for over half his life.

“All right Prongs?”

James pivots around, drinks already in hand and grinning at the sight of him. “Wow, didn’t even recognize you for a tick there Pads, you don’t even have your hand plastered to Moony’s bum!.”

Sirius smirks, tossing him a covert two finger salute as he saddles up besides him and orders the round of drinks. “What can I say Prongsy, the cheeky bugger made me vow to have it there constantly, can’t just jilt my bloke like that, can I?”

James grimaces with a roll of the eyes, and Sirius’s far accustomed to that look of exasperation from him by now. “You’re a mutt.”

“Would you believe you aren’t the first person to say that to me within the last hour?”

“God save our poor Moony.”

“Oh God doesn’t have to worry, I’m taking care of him just fine.”

“Are you being gross about my best friend,” Lily asks as she struts up towards them, looking like an absolute diamond, even if her nose is wrinkled indelicately.

“Aren’t I always in your opinion?” Sirius asks cheekily, trying to balance the four drinks in his grasp before she just rolls her eyes and grabs the flutes of wine for Frank and Dorcas. 

“Your impossible prat-ness aside, I actually think you being all grossly territorial over Remus tonight is actually a good thing.”

“THat’s a first,” James says, but Sirius can only glare, suspicious.

“Why’s that? Oi! Don’t tell me that absolute plonker Dearborn is here!”

“Oh God no,” Lily startles, shaking her head as if the thought was too insane to even fathom. “’S just the firm’s just hired this new bloke and I’m really quite positive that he’s Re’s soulmate.”

“Lily! Don’t say that!” James balks, glancing over at Sirius worriedly, but he in turn only laughs at the magnitude of the statement.

“Jesus, Evans, didn’t think you believed in that ridiculous shite?”

“’S not ridiculous Sirius! And yeah, ‘course I do, like James and I are definitely soulmates.” She twists slightly so to kiss the curve of James’s jaw, making him go a bit blotchy. Poor git’s wrapped around her littlest finger. 

“And what? You reckon Remus and I are just here to kill some time?”

“No, don’t be a pillock,” Lily reproves. “’s just he’s his soulmate is all.”

Okay, Sirius’s amusement has officially given way to irritation, and he twists his head so to scowl down at her as they make their way to the others. “Alright Evans, explain yourself then, yeah? Tell me how he’s Moony’s supposed soulmate.

“Well he’s French.”

“I speak French.”

“He’s got amazing, blonde hair.”

“I’ve got amazing, black hair.”

“He majored in literature just like Remus.” Lily says airily, knowing that Sirius can’t match that being an architect himself.

“Well— I read all that snotty shite Remus asks me too.” He huffs, and Lily answers with a shrug to her slight shoulders.

“Fine then, I’m wrong. You’ve got nothing to worry bout.”

She struts off to their little lump of friends as if to cut the conversation off completely, and Sirius is perfectly find with that. She’s acting off her bloody rocker. But, if Sirius stands closer to Remus than usual for the rest of the night, or if he ends up kissing his temple whenever he feels like someone is watching them, or if he glares at one of the blokes working catering after deigning to offer Remus an empanada— Well that’s Sirius’s business and his alone. He’s not intimidated by this soulmate shite, for fuck’s sake. It’s not like he’s trying to stave off the bastard or something. He does all of that simply because Remus is his husband now, and he loves getting to show that off to all onlookers, even the ones who may or may not be Remus’s soulmate.

.-

“We’ve got dinner with Reggie and his latest girlfriend tonight,” Remus tells Sirius the following Tuesday, tossing the scarf his mother had gifted him last Christmas— with a matching one for Sirius— over his shoulder as they stroll around to the front of the Three Broomsticks for their morning coffees, hands linked and the early winter snow catching in both sets of their lashes.

And God does Sirius love the sound of that, of their schedules overlapping, becoming one almost. Loves the idea that where ever one goes the other follows. Sirius knows that they’ve both have their demons, from Sirius’s neglect and emotional abuse as a child— occasionally sprinkled with a good smack or two if his mother was particularly fuming. To Remus’s complex of never feeling like he can ever be enough, and the way Lyall had acted for years after Remus had come out to his parents as gay, coupled with his multiple hospital visits as a lad until they finally figured out his lupus diagnosis. But they’re better, so much fucking better now. Plenty of the credit going to the remarkable group of friends whom they’ve picked up along the way, but another huge chunk was finding one another, and Sirius knows it in his bones. Knows that there couldn’t be anyone else for him, and sure he knows Remus sometimes deserves more, deserves better— But he’s chosen him, he’s chosen Sirius. He loves Sirius. And it’s remarkable and unbelievable and amazing, and Sirius holds onto the sensation of it with hungry piety.

“Love? Did you hear that?”

Sirius jolts back to the moment, and smiles softly down at him, kissing the corner of Remus’s mouth in penance. “Yes, of course gorgeous. I didn’t forget, I’ll be home early and maybe we can have a lie down before leaving if you’ve finished grading those papers?”

Remus’s laugh right then is like the most splendid instrument Sirius has ever heard, light and magical and warm as a bonfire. “Try to be good and maybe.” He tells him with a cold fingered tapping of his nose before he flounces off to the main counter to order for them.

Sirius doesn’t know how long he stares after him instead of grabbing the gang’s typical seats up front, but is startled when he hear’s a choked out noise coming from behind him and sees Lily, panic faced and eyes wandering frantically.

“Oi, what’s squirming up your arse Evans.” He asks her suspiciously, thick brows furrowed.

“I didn’t know you guys would be here,” she explains so quickly that her words begin to crash into one another. “Oh bloody hell, the one time I have a late start!”

She stomps her foot and Sirius shoots her a fully fledged glower. “What is making you so damn barmy for Christ’s sake.”

Lily parts her lips, but no noise comes out, because right then someone follows her indoors, a very familiar someone if only based off of descriptions. A very tall, very blonde, very smiley looking someone.

Sirius hates him right on sight.

“I’m sorry I took so long at that shop Lily, my mother loves these, how do you say, snow globes?” The stranger says, shaking one for emphasis with Big Ben set in the center.

“Ridiculous tourist trinkets is more like it,” Sirius practically snarls, which earns him a confused look by the blonde and a tired one by Lily.

“Right then, well Sirius this’s Thomas Martin, Thomas this is Sirius Black.”

“Black-Lupin now, ta Lils.”

“Oh,” Thomas says, blue eyes blinking wearily. “Nice to meet you, ah, Sirius.” He extends his hand, and when Sirius shakes it he makes sure to feel the bloke’s bones crushing together, just so he understands who exactly he’s speaking with.

The French arse eventually pulls away, pinning Sirius with a one eyed squint as he curls and stretches his fingers.

“Oh God,” Lily groans, leading them to their spot and depositing herself onto the sofa with absolute exasperation, and Sirius only continues to glare at Thomas as he sits besides her, growing stiffer once Remus returns.

“Oh, hiya Lils,” he smiles, handing Sirius his drink before flickering his gaze to the fucking Frenchman.

“‘lo love, this’s the newest hire at the firm, Thomas. Thomas, this’s my best mate, Remus.” She introduces quickly, the fucking trader.

“Remus?” Thomas asks, dimpling down at Sirius’s fucking husband with bright eyes. And Sirius has to curl his fists so not to punch him right in the sodding face, only growing angrier when Remus chuckles and ducks his head, like he was nervous by him! Like he thought he was in fact very good looking and very charming and his damn soulmate.

“Yeah, blame that on my mum, she was big into the classics.”

Thomas’s grin widens even more and Sirius feels the pulse on his neck beginning to throb. “No, it’s very charming. My Grandfather was very, erm, focussed on those studies as well? Begged my parents to name me Enkidu. They thankfully refused.”

Remus laughs fully now, and Sirius wants to a punch a wall. It took him literal months to make Remus laugh like that— genuine and glimmering and gorgeous. “Lucky bloke. Though I do have to admit that Gilgamesh is a favorite of mine, I think I’ve read the epic twenty times over.”

“Oh mine too,” the fucking Frenchman says, stepping closer to Remus and now in front of Sirius fully, gambling bravely that Sirius wouldn’t try to cap him right here. “If you ask me however, I do believe that he and Enkidu are more than just, friends.” His eyes flicker down to Remus’s lips for a split second and when he looks back up his face is positively leering.

Sirius sees red.

“God, so nice to finally talk to someone who gets it, the professors I work under are usually so painfully heteronormative that it’s crippling.” Remus tells him, smiling kindly.

“Oh, I’m the furthest away from that, I assure you.”

He winks! He fucking winks! Sirius swears to God! He sees the bastard winking at his husband! His fucking husband! What the bloody hell does he think that golden band on Remus’s finger matching Sirius’s own is suppose to represent! Holy shit!

“I’d love to read anything you have on the subject, most things translated to French are a bit clunky.”

He’s trying to ask him out! Right here! Right in front of Sirius! Sirius is going to strangle his snail swallowing neck! Thankfully, Lily must sense his inner turmoil because she interjects their conversation right then, asking Thomas to grab her a jasmine tea.

“Oh yes of course,” he nods congenially, rounding back on Remus before he leaves. “Would you like a pastry? On me.”

Is he trying to ask Remus to eat it off of him? What the hell! It took nearly a year of them fucking for Sirius to get Remus to bring food in the bedroom, to get to watch Remus lick the chocolate syrup off his cock. And what? Does he think he’s even got a chance so quickly!

“Oh, that’s sweet,” Remus grins and a part of Sirius dies on the inside. “But I’ll come tag along, yeah? I love talking about this stuff and Sirius absolutely hates this ancient rubbish.”

“I do not! I think these dead blokes are very interesting,” he harrumphs, heated, with pouting lips and crossed arms. But Remus only tosses back his head with laughter in response, which makes the fucking Frenchman beam that bit brighter.

“After you,” he says with a swish of the hand.

Sirius is going to be tried for murder, and he’s not even sorry about it.

“’s okay love,” Lily reassures him, patting his head dotingly. “We’ll find you someone new.”

“I hate you Evans!”

“Don’t blame the messenger!”

Sirius is about to tell her just how much he does exactly that, but then he catches on the fucking Frenchman putting his hand over Remus’s to prevent him from sliding over his card and all the fight leaves him in an instant.

.-

Sirius ended up not even going to the on sight location for the latest project he’s heading at the firm. He instead spent the bulk of the morning and part of the afternoon grinding his teeth as Remus spoke and barbed and laughed with the fucking Frenchman, like he was enjoying himself. And it was torture, watching the way they naturally clicked and got on— Literal fucking torture.

Sirius is still fuming as they sit in front of his younger brother and his newest bird, a pretty girl named Amal, who’s just graduated from a posh, fashion institute in the north of France. And Christ it’s like he’s being bombarded with the idea of that country all day.

“God that must’ve been such a wonderful experience,” Remus says, smiling as she leans forwards with a grin, speaking louder over the chatter of the busy sushi joint they had all agreed upon.

“Oh yes, the cuisine was simply unmatched, even if I did end up missing London, being home and all. Though I’m afraid my French is seriously dwindling compared to my English and Arabic now.”

“You should ask Reggie to practice with you, I know I love it when Sirius speaks the language.” He winks right then, making Amal crow with laughter and Regulus roll his eyes fondly. But Sirius stays peeved off with his hinged jaw, absolutely seething.

“Bet my hopeless brother recites poetry to you and everything, rose in his mouth and all.”

Remus laughs and Sirius suddenly has the horrid image of the fucking Frenchman doing as much outside the window to their bedroom, and is furious all over again.

“Well Reggie, Remus here does fancy all things French, foods and wines and blokes and just the whole lot.”

“Well good, we have something in common,” Amal snickers, lacing her hand through Regulus’s own over the tabletop. Sirius and Remus haven’t held hands since the waitress brought out their drinks, and remembering as much makes Sirius take a swig of his logger, hating everything.

“Yes well, you can say it’s Remus’s soulmate, France I mean.” He says, words beginning to slur. “He’s meant for French food and wines and blokes, innit true love? You’d prefer a French bloke?”

Amal frowns and Regulus pins him with a one eyed squint, befuddled. But Sirius only gathers his wits about him when Remus clammers noisily out his chair and tugs on his arm to follow suit. 

“Reg order us the specials yeah? And a round of spring rolls,” he instructs, words clipped, and a small dent peeking out between his brows, like it does when he’s especially annoyed. “C’mon Sirius we need to talk.”

“But that’d be awfully rude,” Sirius retorts, already hates the flat, fuming tone Remus is speaking with, and feels good and properly nervous for the impending conversation.

“They have one another, ’s fine. Now let’s go.”

Sirius concedes and pretends it doesn’t feel like he’s being lead to the gallows.

.-

“All right prick,” Remus huffs, rounding on Sirius right after he locks the door to the single user loo. “What has gotten you in such a bloody awful mood.”

Sirius sniffs, arms crossed against his chest and his head tilted imperiously. “I’m peachy.”

“You’ve been acting like an arse ever since we had coffee with Lily,” Remus counters, reproving. 

“Actually love, if you didn’t notice, Lily left about halfway through you and the blonde’s little clucking session.”

Remus furrows his brows now, pillowy lips pinched and looking lost as hell. “You’re angry because Lily left for work?”

“Oh for bloody hell Remus!” Sirius erupts, tossing his arms in the air. “I’m angry because you met your ruddy soulmate and now you’re going to ride off into the sunset with’m and read French poetry together while eating cheese and bread and talking about highbrow shit like Aeneid!”

Remus startles backwards, long lashes flapping and mouth gaped open. “Oh Christ, you’ve gone absolutely mad. You’re insane.”

“You’re not helping.”

“I feel like I should call someone about my husband going bloody mental.”

“I repeat. Not. Helping.”

“What in hell has convinced you that this random bloke is my soulmate?” Remus asks, back to being patient as ever.

“Lily!” Sirius shouts. “She told me that you and the fucking Frenchman are soulmates! And she’s right okay! She’s bloody spot on.”

Remus rolls back his entire head now, groaning out, “You are such an idiot.”

“Real nice Moons,” Sirius frowns, doesn’t even know how to feel now, the anger seeping out of him the longer he’s standing besides Remus, leaving an awful, clawing abandonment in its wake.

“Did you ever once think to ask me what I think of the damn concept of soulmates? Hmm?” He asks, single brow hiked with pure condescension. 

And oh.

Sirius is stuck for a minute there, doesn’t see an out to the question. “Well…. Erm—“

“Well if you had asked, like a normal sodding bloke! I wold’ve told you that I married you because I know your my soulmate you arse! And it isn’t because of some ridiculous notion of stardust or providence or whatever else. It’s because we grew together, and we fight for one another, and even when you’re being a complete prick or we’re arguing like mad you’re the only one I want. Only person I can ever see myself with, the only person I want to try this hard for. The only fucking person I ever want to call my husband! My partner! lover!”

“Oh.” Sirius breathes out, all his fears being strangled by the conviction embedded into Remus’s words. And it’s like all of Sirius’s insides melt, like all the adoration and love and reverence he holds for Remus is pooling in his stomach and threatening to pour out his every orifice. And God he can’t even inhale, only scrambles to lock his hands around Remus’s cheeks and press his head against Remus’s own.

“Yeah? You really think that.”

“Hell, I thought the wedding and all would’ve made that clear.”

Sirius chuckles, only lightly, his thumb dragging beneath Remus’s eye tenderly. “God I love you, so endlessly. Please forgive me for being an idiot?”

“Yeah, I suppose I’ll keep you around,” Remus teases, bouncing on the balls of his feet to kiss Sirius’s nose and lock his arms around his neck, and the sensation of it— them knotted into one another— could never be replicated in a thousand years, not like this, not like them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you SO SO much for reading loves! It would mean the galaxy and stars to me if you let me know what you thought!
> 
> Also please feel free to leave a storyline/episode idea<3<3
> 
> Come chat with me on [Tumblr](http://LupinMoons.tumblr.com) !!!! <3 I’m trying to post a one shot every other day of the month for January lol


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